Training Climate and Weather Citizen Scientists: Investigating How Students Learn by Rescuing Historical Weather Data

Our two new hires, Candice Cartier and Isabelle Mayer Jouanjean, have begun work on the next steps to support expansion of our curriculum to new post-secondary institutions. Their work will help create to a digital database of secondary sources of historical climatic and weather events to add to the scientific data records captured in the Data Rescue: Archives and Weather (DRAW, https://citsci.geog.mcgill.ca) record.

This new source will document how the weather and climate affected human social, cultural, or political processes. Cartier and Jouanjean will be responsible for scanning and digitizing archival newspaper records and other first-hand materials from the time period, 1871-1964, for use in our curriculum. They will be looking especially for articles and materials that recount the impact the weather had on daily lives.

Our curriculum involves post-secondary students in learning about historical climate and weather in Montreal, associated human events, and their own heritage as Canadians. Students learn through hands-on work with DRAW, archival resources, and class discussions/lecture. The work of our new employees in digitizing archival material will make it more widely available for students to access so that our curriculum can be run at more post-secondary educational institutions.

Their work will take place primarily at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ). Through citizen science and crowdsourcing, DRAW involves the Montreal public in the collection and transcription of weather information recorded between in logbooks from the former McGill University Observatory. DRAW, itself, constitutes an interdisciplinary effort with researchers from McGill University’s Faculties of Arts, Science and Education, and in partnership with the McGill University Archives.

Our next steps include the work of Isabelle Mayer Jouanjean and Candice Cartier to provide additional resources for students to use in our curriculum. They also include the development of a color curriculum book with resources for post-secondary educators as well. This will be published as a PDF on the Data Rescue: Archives and Weather (DRAW, https://citsci.geog.mcgill.ca/) website and form a key part of the educator’s corner that will be added to the resources available on the site.

Our lessons learned so far include the need to hire individuals who possess the technical expertise to be able to discern the historical types of weather and climate events we are looking for in the historical record.

We believe that hiring individuals with higher levels of expertise, better delineating the goals for their work (as opposed to what we can do ourselves), and strongly guiding their work (we will have meetings next week with both) can improve the quality of the work we receive and, ultimately, our ability to provide the resources necessary for the success of our curriculum.

“The purpose of this project is to enable the development of a unique Montreal specific citizen science curriculum, and expand it to include new post-secondary institutions. This curriculum will further students understanding of weather and climate and their related social impacts.

By integrating the Data Rescue: Archives and Weather (DRAW, https://citsci.geog.mcgill.ca/) website, the curriculum engages students with hands-on experience in data analysis and with cultural and scientific aspects of Montreal’s heritage. Through citizen science and crowdsourcing, DRAW involves the Montreal public in the collection and transcription of weather information recorded between 1871 to 1964 in logbooks from the former McGill University Observatory.

DRAW, itself, constitutes an interdisciplinary effort with researchers from McGill University’s Faculties of Arts, Science and Education, and in partnership with the McGill University Archives.

First piloted and evaluated during March and April of 2018 at Dawson College, this project’s three-week curriculum focuses on introducing students to social science research methods, including citizen science based transcription of historical weather data and research that links historical weather with contemporary social conditions or events.

The course’s main assignment asks students to conduct their own research on the time period for which they have transcribed data with DRAW by examining how the physical environment, as exemplified by the weather, related to human social, political, and cultural processes. After transcribing one (or more) pages on the DRAW website, students refer to online digital and McGill University microfilm resources to investigate the social consequences of climatic or weather events in historical newspaper accounts, photos, texts, and other primary sources from the time period.

Students benefit from undertaking original social science research methods in fields that include historical climate science, archival research, analysis of original source material, and data transcription.

This project is unique to Montreal as DRAW was developed through an interdisciplinary collaboration at McGill University. We are the only group of researchers and educators with access to the resources needed to adapt and expand this project to both francophone and anglophone educational settings in Montreal at the post-secondary level.

Our project emphasizes hands-on, active learning by students who use a variety of scientific and research technologies to conduct their own research during our course module.

Our four general learning outcomes include students being able to:
1) explain how scientists examine Montreal’s historical records of climate and weather;
2) employ scientific research and data transcription skills to evaluate historical sources of scientific information;
3) explain how human social, cultural, and political events relate to climate and weather; and
4) apply scientific methods involving the use of historical climate records to their own research in class.

Students are expected to demonstrate mastery of three specific learning outcomes within each of these general areas by the end of our course module. These specific outcomes range across all of the levels of thinking identified by Bloom’s Taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002). They also include factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive facets of student learning. A full table of specific learning outcomes can be provided upon request.

In fall 2018, our project’s success will be measured by the completion of four research and educational products.

First, we aim to complete the analysis of pilot research evaluating the educational impact of our three-week course module on 21 students at Dawson College. We aim to publish three manuscripts based upon the educational research instruments we utilized including pre/post questionnaires, pre/post exam questions, student and instructor exit interviews, student written reflections, assignment/handout work, and classroom video recording.

Second, we will measure project success based upon the digitization of one-year of microfilm pages of the Montreal Gazette from the time period covered by the DRAW Project.

Third, we will measure success based on the continued refinement of our research instruments (for use by all DRAW project participants).

Finally, our success will be measured by the completion of a course curriculum book for dissemination both online (on the DRAW website) and in print form to interested educators in Montreal.