Cultivating Future Scientific Citizens Through Science-Education Integration: Core Concepts and Practical Pathways of Citizen Science in American Schools
ZHU Xiu-Jin1, CHEN Bo2**, LIU Hai-Liang1
1. School of Education, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin D02 PD25, Ireland; 2. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nantong University, Nantong 226019, China
Abstract School citizen science, as a paradigm linking scientific research and education, has become a crucial pathway in American science education. The study finds that its core objective is to cultivate “scientific citizens” with both scientific literacy and social responsibility. Through the mechanism of “integration of scientific research and educational objectives”, real scientific research tasks are integrated into teaching practices. Relying on a “scientists-teachers-students-community” multi-stakeholder collaborative model, teachers act as bridges to build an ecology with coupled interests, achieving a win-win situation for scientific data acquisition, teaching goal realization, and community problem-solving. Online platforms such as Scistarter are leveraged to integrate project resources, while a multi-department vertical policy system led by the federal government ensures project standardization. American experience inspires China to strengthen policy guidance and cross-departmental collaboration, promote deep integration of research, education, and community needs, optimize teacher training to enhance scientific research transformation capabilities, and provide systematic support for cultivating new-era scientific citizens.
ZHU Xiu-Jin, CHEN Bo, LIU Hai-Liang. Cultivating Future Scientific Citizens Through Science-Education Integration: Core Concepts and Practical Pathways of Citizen Science in American Schools[J]. Chinese Journal of Chemical Education, 2025, 46(17): 114-120.
