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  • Welcome on board!
  • Who we are
    • Our history
    • Collaborations
    • navigation area
    • SUSTAINABILITY
    • Links
  • The Pedagogical Sailboat
    • The concept >
      • The scientific pedagogy
      • The Technical Pedagogy
      • The social pedagogy
      • Microplastics
    • Citizen Science
  • ERASMUS MARIS
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Press
  • Resources
Picture
ASE developed the concept of the Pedagogical Sailboat in order to foster the participation of secondary school students in running scientific projects in the frame of a mobility experience aboard a sailboat. This type of projects in which non scientists participate in the development of scientific knowledge  enter in the category of Citizen science (OED 2014). Furthermore, A successful CS project also include educational and societal goals​ like awareness and engagement

Despite the booming of citizen science projects some scientists are reluctant to incorporate non professional scientists in their research projects. This concern is explained by one of the main challenge in Citizen Science projects (CS projects): to produce reliable knowledge from data collected by non-professional scientists (in our case, secondary school students)​. An additional difficulty  in  the field of the assessment of microplastics pollution is that "neither sampling, extraction, purification nor identification approaches are standardised, making the increasing numbers of MP studies hardly -if at all- comparable" (JPI Ocean - baseman project)

One of the proposed solutions to tackle this issue is the training of the participants and the assessment of their skills and competences. Within the Pedagogical Sailboat project, we use the competence-based approach to design and conduct effective and consistent training and education. 
The competence based approach has several advantages:
  1. It is a state-of-the-art training and education method that is aligned to explicit, measurable and  transferable learning objectives and outcomes (Allen, 2001)  ; 
  2. it focuses on skill mastery not knowledge acquisition. According to PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), competence is more than just knowledge and skills. It involves the ability to meet complex demands, by drawing upon and mobilising psychosocial resources (including skills and attitudes) in a particular context (PISA, 2005) . In other words this approach answers to the question “How well must it be done?”;
  3. it eases the possibility of delivering a certificate recognising the level of competence. This might be useful for the re-engagement of participants to new CS projects.
  4. furthermore, the competence approach offers future potential for a harmonization of the citizen science training.


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 Bibliography
Allen, C. (2001). Competencies (Measurable Characteristics). Recommendation of the HR- XML consortium. 
Ana Filgueras​ et Al "(2019) "Standardised protocol for monitoring microplastics in seawater" JPI-OCEANS Baseman project. Deliverable 4.1
Bonney, R. (2009). Public participation in scientific research: defining the field and assessing its potential for informal science education. Washington, D.C.: CAISE.
Jennifer L. Shirk et al. (2012). Public Participation in Scientific Research: a Framework for Deliberate Design. Ecology and Society, 17(2), 29-48.
JPI OCEANS -BASEMAN PROJECT - DELIVERABLE 4.1 -Standardised protocol for monitoring microplastics in seawater
O’Sullivan, N. (2014). Teaching and learning in competency-based education. 5th conference on e-learning. 
PISA. (2005). The definition and selection of key competencies. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/pisa/35070367.pdf.
Stoof, e. (2007). Educational Technology Research and Development, 55(4), 347-368.
OED. (2014). Citizen science definition - Oxford English Dictionary




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