Dates: April 12 and 13, 2024.
Location: Etopia Art and Technology Center
Participants: Students, teachers and the general public.
We are glad to announce our CS project «Melanogaster, Catch The Fly!» (MCTF) international meeting of citizen scientists’ experiences “Citizen Primavera of Science” (Citizen Science Spring), on the 12th and 13th of April 2024, at the Center of Art and Technology “ETOPIA”, located in Zaragoza, Spain.
This event aims to bring together national and international school citizen scientists, teachers, and student participants in MCTF and from other CS projects, researchers of the European Drosophila Population Genomics Consortium (DrosEU), a scientific consortium that brings together 79 research groups from 29 countries, and expert researchers on citizen science funded by the European Research Council (ERC).
For MelanogasterCTF participants from out of Spain, the organization will grant on application basis, 5 free accomodation packages for 1 professor and 2 students from the 11th to the 14th of april in Zaragoza. They can be students who are currently participating or have participated in the past and who want to share any result, project or experience from his or her participation in MelanogasterCTF or another CS project.
INTERNATIONAL DAY ON TRAINING, CO-CREATION, AND EXCHANGE OF EXPERIENCES IN CITIZEN SCIENCE
The event will consist of several workshops, debates, talks, and outreach activities. We are convinced that these diverse activities will bring up an outstanding opportunity to enhance and give more visibility to the scientific talent, and to the frontier science and citizen science who are led from Europe and beyond. This socially inclusive and transversal event will also promote scientific careers in young people and aims to foster the visibility of women in science in leading positions.
The meeting will include conferences by invited researchers who lead citizen science project as part of their ERC frontier research
- Elaine Chew,
Professor of Engineering joint between the Department of Engineering (Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences) and the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences (Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine) at King’s College London. Elaine is the Principal Investigator of the ERC project COSMOS (Computational Shaping and Modeling of Musical Structures) and ERC POC HEART.FM (Maximizing the Therapeutic Potential of Music through Tailored Therapy with Physiological Feedback in Cardiovascular Disease), using data science and citizen science techniques to decipher the functions and mechanisms of music expressivity and deploying them for autonomic modulation. - Josefa González,
Tenured scientist at the CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) in Barcelona, Spain. Dr. González research aims at understanding how organisms adapt to the environment. Her lab combines omic approaches with detailed molecular and functional analyses to identify and characterize adaptive mutations, and in particular, those induced by transposable element insertions (gonzalezlab.eu). She is also committed to increasing public awareness of science and co-leading a citizen science project (melanogaster.eu). Josefa is also ESEB (eseb.org) vice-president, and a SMBE (smbe.org) council member. - Caroline Dricot,
Researcher PHD Student bij Universiteit Antwerpen.
Caroline will talk to us about the ERC citizen-science project “Isala” led by Ph.D. Sarah Lebeer, research professor at the Department of Bioscience Engineering of the University of Antwerp, Belgium to gain new insights into the ecology and role of vaginal lactobacilli for women’s health, but also to actively involve women to contribute with ideas on how to improve vaginal health and break some taboos together (https://isala.be/en).
Conferences by guest researchers from the DrosEU network (TBA) within the framework of its 10th anniversary.
The “Citizen Primavera of Science” meeting, in addition to strengthening the dynamics of collaboration between the citizen scientists of our project, and generating links and collaborations with other projects, will also serve to fully exploit the long-term potential of our project and our activities such as: (i) Track the Fly, which allows citizens to investigate and monitor the effects of climate change on local biodiversity. (ii) The Citizen Fly Lab activity, in 2021, 2022, and 2023 has had a high demand for participation, involving students in the experimental validation of scientific data using the PCR technique. (iii) Finally, the event will also include a new edition of the Teach and Fly teacher training.
These activities will be implemented as training workshops, co-creation activities, data visualization, and markets for collaboration opportunities with other citizen science projects, which will allow us to grow our project even more, and actively follow up on the activities started in previous editions.
The “Citizen Primavera of Science” meeting will offer a unique opportunity for the exchange of experiences and knowledge between participants in citizen science projects from various geographies (many of them rural), cultures and realities. The innovative “hands on” participation formats that this meeting will offer encourage dynamic participation. Furthermore, the collective data visualization and analysis activities will favor effective interaction between participants, which will facilitate the transfer of knowledge, techniques and experiences. The transfer of knowledge will be transversal among all participants —students, teachers, scientists and social agents— thus generating an open and inclusive learning environment, which will also invite new groups to be part of our project, and to participate in other citizen science projects.
Preliminary program:
- “Track The Fly” environmental data visualization, analysis and interpretation meeting.
- Technology session to improve or seek new features of the weather station and the “Track the Fly” application.
- “Code The Fly” data analysis marathon
- “Citizen Fly Lab” training and experimental data validation marathon
- Sample of scientific dissemination materials and resources, designed and produced by the students participating in MCTF to publicize the project, results and scientific concepts associated with MCTF and other citizen science projects.
- Sample of results and guides of the observation and monitoring activity to identify possible practices and natural events that may affect biodiversity.
- Exchange of experiences between teachers of different citizen science projects.
- Sustainability workshop between teachers from different citizen science projects, to explore collaborations between projects.
- conferences by invited researchers who lead citizen science project as part of their ERC frontier research.
- Conferences by guest researchers from the DrosEU network within the framework of its 10th anniversary.
+ Program and registration
/https://etopia.es/primavera-ciudadana/
The “Citizen Primavera of Science” meeting, is part of the citizen science project #MelanogasterCTF is co-lead by the Evolutionary and Functional Genomics Lab, of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC), and the scientific dissemination platform La Ciència Al Teu Món (LCATM). The project is carried out with the collaboration of the European Drosophila Population Genomics Consortium (DrosEU), and with the collaboration of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology – Ministry of Science and Innovation (FECYT), and the European Research Council (ERC).»
