Cross-Border Citizen Scientists -project gives science education to youth in the Finnish-Russian border area. The project collects a Finnish-Russian group of students to be trained into “Citizen Scientists”, experts of their own cross-border area.
“Citizen Science” is a model developed to connect science to everyday life of common people. Through Citizen Scientist projects, people from outside academia are invited to take part in the scientific agenda by, for example, collecting samples and making observations. The “Citizen Science” model has so far been implemented mostly in the field of environmental sciences, but the approach in Cross-Border Citizen Scientists project is multidisciplinary.
The participants of the project will explore themes that have high relevance to their own cross-border area with the help of scientific methods of collecting, analyzing and disseminating information.
Four themes have been selected for the students to be trained in. These are:
THEME 1: “Do Finnish fish speak Russian?” (environment)
THEME 2: “The other side of the story” (joint history)
THEME 3: “My business, your business?” (business)
THEME 4: “Cross the line!” (mental borders)
The aim of the project is to engage youth in cross-border cooperation and joint problem-solving. Acquiring knowledge about the border area encourages the students to make perceptions of the neighbouring country based on genuine experience instead of stereotypes and prejudices. The participants of the project will pass their experiences and knowledge to their schools and local networks.
The project produces a study package that is a concrete guide of how to execute a similar Cross-Border Citizen Scientist project with student groups in any other European Union border area.
