Discover Citizen Science through Open Science

Aliki Giannakopoulou, Eugenia Kypriotis - Ellinogermaniki Agogi, Androniki Pavlidou

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Abstract:
The need for a well-informed society ready to make decisions in a more democratic way is greater than ever today. Science is too important, valuable and fascinating to be left to professional scientists alone. For the good of society, the public, and scientific progress itself, science needs to be open. Ellinogermaniki Agogi, under the coordination of Athena Institute and other OpenAIRE partners are currently organising a series of actions in collaboration with schools, aiming to bring schools closer to research, innovation, science and society. We have created the Open Schools Journal for Open Science. This is the first European peer review scientific journal that accepts original papers written by school age students from Primary to Secondary schools across Europe under the mentoring of their Teachers on all aspects of Science, Engineering and Technology. The articles are reviewed by scientists and teachers and published every 2 months. Students are thus introduced into the concept of open science, the value of data and electronic identities, develop their critical thinking skills and learn more about the importance of supporting their point of view. The second OpenAIRE action currently coordinated by EA that involves pupils and ordinary citizens, is related to citizen science and the issue of earthquakes. In OpenAIRE, schools in six countries in Europe are also installing school seismographs under the supervision of the Geodynamic Institute of the National Observatory of Athens, record data and are invited to design civil protection actions using platforms such as HELIX-Hellenic Data Service, the new Greek Data Service and national digital infrastructure. A community has been also created at ZENODO for schools interested in frontiers science. By participating in actions such as those offered in OpenAIRE, students open their horizons on their views about science and learn in a highly creative way.