Engaging school-age children in activities involving ‘real-world’ science and interacting with scientific researchers can promote an interest in appreciating and understanding the natural world and the scientific method. Here, we describe a project involving five female early-career and PhD researchers who facilitated a citizen science project with school-age children. Under the guidance of the researchers, across five schools, children created artificial flowers and installed them on school ovals. Over repeated 10-min observations, students recorded how colour (yellow vs. blue) and configuration (isolated, clumped adjacent, clumped mixed colour and clumped single colour) influenced how many and what taxa of insects visited. Here, we reflect on what we were able to achieve including creating a simple, fun, cost-effective project; anecdotal student interest in insects, and positive female STEM role models. We also acknowledge constraints and shortcomings, including set curricula resulting in suboptimal season for pollinator studies; confounding of results due to children’s observations; and being unable to verify the data. We offer recommendations for more robust projects in future, which include collecting specimens to verify results, and measuring learning outcomes. If these recommendations are met, researcher–student projects can engage children in conducting scientific experiments with applications for home and school garden management.

中文翻译：

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儿童公民科学的潜力和陷阱：对操场项目中传粉者的思考

让学龄儿童参与涉及“现实世界”科学的活动并与科学研究人员互动，可以激发他们对欣赏和理解自然世界和科学方法的兴趣。在这里，我们描述了一个项目，该项目涉及五名女性早期职业和博士研究人员，她们促进了一个针对学龄儿童的公民科学项目。在研究人员的指导下，五所学校的孩子们制作了人造花，并将它们安装在学校椭圆形上。经过 10 分钟的重复观察，学生们记录了颜色（黄色与蓝色）和配置（孤立的、成簇的相邻颜色、成簇的混合颜色和成簇的单一颜色）如何影响昆虫类群的数量和种类。在这里，我们回顾了我们能够实现的目标，包括创建一个简单、有趣、具有成本效益的项目；轶事学生对昆虫的兴趣，以及积极的女性 STEM 榜样。我们也承认限制和缺点，包括设置的课程导致授粉媒介研究的季节不理想；由于儿童的观察而导致的结果混淆；并且无法验证数据。我们为未来更强大的项目提供建议，包括收集样本以验证结果和衡量学习成果。如果这些建议得到满足，研究人员-学生项目可以让孩子们参与到应用家庭和学校花园管理的科学实验中。由于儿童的观察而导致的结果混淆；并且无法验证数据。我们为未来更强大的项目提供建议，包括收集样本以验证结果和衡量学习成果。如果这些建议得到满足，研究人员-学生项目可以让孩子们参与到应用家庭和学校花园管理的科学实验中。由于儿童的观察而导致的结果混淆；并且无法验证数据。我们为未来更强大的项目提供建议，包括收集样本以验证结果和衡量学习成果。如果这些建议得到满足，研究人员-学生项目可以让孩子们参与到应用家庭和学校花园管理的科学实验中。