- Convenors:
-
Maria Rytter-Nielsen
(Natural History Museum Denmark)
Heidi Ballard (University of California - Davis)
Marie Rathcke Lillemark (Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen)
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Panel
Short Abstract
We explore how citizen science connects the past, present and future through engagement in historical, ecological, and cultural heritage. It highlights long-term data use, intergenerational learning, and inclusive collaboration to support present research, knowledge access, and sustainable futures.
Description
This panel explores how citizen science serves as a vital bridge between past and present, connecting communities, researchers, and institutions in the co-creation of knowledge.
This theme will focus on the importance of long-term data collection, the gathering and curation of data and specimens for future research, the investigation of traces from the past and the relevance of historical foundations when making research meaningful for today’s society. The panel welcomes a broad range of citizen science projects that bridge past and present through active engagement with historical, ecological, and cultural heritage, and where citizens and communities are involved in long-term monitoring projects or are using historical data sets or objects for present-day studies aimed at securing sustainable futures.
For example, one talk might present the Orchid Observers project, where citizens helped transcribe historical herbarium records and collect new field data. Another example could present bird ringing schemes, long-term citizen science efforts that track bird migration and population trends globally.
Panel participants will present citizen science studies and programs that demonstrate the significance of historical dimensions and how collaborative research in fields of culture and/or ecology supports the future safeguarding of cultural heritage and biodiversity.
The session invites dialogue on how citizen science can contribute to democratizing access to knowledge, improving the stewardship of data related to cultural and natural heritage, and promoting critical reflection on our relationship with history and the environment. By bridging temporal, geographical, and social borders, citizen science offers powerful tools for shaping sustainable and inclusive futures.
Accepted papers
Short Abstract
We study how intergenerational learning has been conceptualised in sustainability transformations. We then reflect on how we use the concept in the co-design stages of our knowledge co-creation on how intergenerational learning can foster young people´s inclusion in UNESCO Man & Biosphere reserves.
Abstract
In this paper we explore the potential of intergenerational knowledge co-creation and co-research methods to bridge across divides between generations in sustainability transformations. We study how intergenerational learning has been conceptualised in sustainability transformations. We then reflect on how we use those conceptualisations in our first knowledge co-creation stages and in the formulation of a co-research process. We study the potential of intergenerational learning as means to foster young people´s inclusion in sustainability transformations. We work with these knowledge co-creation and co-research processes in UNESCO Man & Biosphere (M&B) reserves in two North Karelia M&B reserve in Finland and Amani M&B reserve in Tanzania. Our focus is on knowledge co-creation and co-research as means to bridge generational divides, to prevent failure in reciprocal knowledge transfer and to enable intergenerational learning between generations. However, we also reflect on the ability of these methods to reduce distance between the involved actors: our young co-researchers, interaction partners, and other relevant actors involved in the M&B reserves. We also reflect on how knowledge co-creation and co-research methods shape our research agenda and the position of us as researchers.
Short Abstract
Deep Time unites archaeology and ecology through citizen-powered Earth Observation mapping. By treating landscapes as living tapestries of past and present, participants reveal how history, nature, and technology coalesce to shape inclusive, sustainable futures.
Abstract
Deep Time exemplifies how citizen science bridges past, present, and future by dissolving professional silos between cultural and natural heritage. Developed by DigVentures, the platform empowers citizens to map archaeological and ecological features from satellite and LiDAR data, revealing how centuries of human activity have shaped today’s biodiversity—and how these histories can guide future restoration.
Across nine missions spanning 5 300 km² of UK landscape, 6 500 participants mapped over 70 000 heritage and habitat features. Each mission intertwined temporal perspectives: citizens traced ancient field systems, ghost ponds, and shadow woods—historic imprints now informing reforestation, peatland repair, and habitat creation. By learning to “read” landscapes as palimpsests, participants gained new appreciation of how ecological recovery depends on cultural memory.
The programme fostered intergenerational learning (ages 17–89) and inclusion (50 % newcomers, 15 % non-white participants), with 68 % reporting stronger connection to place and 92 % inspired to act for the environment. Working with the National Trust, National Landscapes, and Wildlife Trusts, citizen-generated data now informs both nature recovery strategies and heritage management.
Deep Time demonstrates that heritage and habitat are two sides of the same living system. By uniting collective intelligence, digital technologies, and local knowledge, it offers a new model of landscape stewardship—one that connects historical understanding with future sustainability, and people with the deep-time stories written across the places they inhabit.
https://digventures.com/projects/deep-time/
Short Abstract
Next Generation Lab turns archaeological leather and bone finds into hands-on learning for students. In 2025, it expands to Nuuk, involving Greenlandic youth in studying their heritage and gaining Greenlandic perspectives on past clothing practices.
Abstract
Next Generation Lab turns large and unstudied archaeological leather and bone assemblages into a laboratory learning experience for high school students. The students, in turn, provide species identifications and thus increase knowledge on archaeological materials and specific research questions.
So far, the experience has taken place in Copenhagen, Denmark, but in October 2025, the project travels to Nuuk, Greenland, to work with a Greenlandic high school on Greenlandic archaeological material. The setup has been made possible through knowledge-sharing with local partners on amongst others available equipment, possible language barriers, and potential archaeological material. By involving Greenlandic high school students in research on animal skins from a South Greenlandic mummy find we democratize their cultural heritage which is most often investigated by researchers of other and often Danish heritage. We hope to through the project connect them to their heritage and showcase different career paths within the biology, archaeology and conservation science as well as to gain Greenlandic perspectives on amongst others the use of animal skin in clothing.
Short Abstract
Based on two school-based citizen humanities projects – Our History and Climate Future Fiction/FUSION – this paper will show how CS activities can bridge past, present, and future for high school students.
Abstract
School-based activities within Citizen Humanities offer a valuable pathway for bridging past, present, and future in the educational experiences of high school students. Two illustrative curriculum-based cases—Our History and Climate Future Fiction—engage Danish high school students as citizen scientists, enabling them to generate, analyze, and disseminate research data.
In Our History, students conduct interviews with elderly individuals about their lived experiences during the societal transformations in Denmark in the 1960s and 1970s. These interviews serve as data for academic research. To prepare students for this task, they receive instruction on relevant topics such as the women’s movement, gender roles, and family life. Throughout the course, students are encouraged to compare the societal conditions of the past with those of their own time. An additional research component invites students to reflect on their anticipated future family and work lives, thereby fostering a connection between past, present, and future.
In Climate Future Fiction, students contribute to research on youth perspectives regarding long-term climate change by writing and analyzing climate fiction (Cli-Fi) narratives in their English classes. In addition to creative writing, students engage with historical and contemporary climate data through lectures and digital tools. This multifaceted approach enables students to explore climate change across temporal dimensions, once again bridging past, present, and future.
Together, these curriculum-based Citizen Humanities initiatives exemplify how engaging students in research-oriented activities can foster critical reflection and temporal awareness, while simultaneously contributing to broader academic knowledge production.
Short Abstract
Based on specific participatory collection data, we show how citizen scientists, by situating natural-cultural heritage objects within historical and contemporary contexts, can connect individual and collective histories to global crises as a basis for the reflection of sustainable futures.
Abstract
Our existentially threatened present is shaped by planetary crises and local vulnerabilities at political, societal, and ecological levels. Transdisciplinary participatory collections that connect historical and cultural heritage with local experiences and memories can generate crucial knowledge for understanding ongoing environmental change.
Drawing on the data of a Franco-German participatory collection on the “Anthropocene”, we show how citizen scientists situate natural-cultural heritage objects within both historical and contemporary contexts, opening new pathways for rethinking the role of natural history museums in shaping sustainable futures. These objects, not the typical objects for natural history collections, reveal how political, ecological, and economic entanglements are inscribed in material cultures. Through the act of selecting and contextualizing their own objects, citizens locate their lifeworlds within the tension between local experience and global crisis. Different generations participate, and exchange their perspectives on these changes.
The collected objects (e.g. everyday objects or photos from personal archives) not only expose these entanglements but also connect personal and collective histories to global dynamics. In doing so, they bring marginalized perspectives to the fore and position citizen science as a key instrument for questioning power relations and redistributing knowledge. For natural history museums—often shaped by colonial, extractivist, and elitist practices—citizen participation opens new spaces for negotiation and collaboration. Engaging today with objects from the past that resist clear classification between nature and culture can help to understand the intertwined challenges of our present and foster intergenerational dialogue.