Send message to Authors

Poster Short Abstract

Our citizen science project brings metabarcoding of environmental DNA into schools to supplement regulatory aquatic monitoring with additional data for overlooked smaller rivers. Primary and secondary school students collect water samples, get to know aquatic life, and conduct water body surveys.

Poster Abstract

Streams are vital ecosystems from an ecological, economic, and social perspective. Protecting these ecosystems is an important task for society (see SDG 6). Various programmes and initiatives are established in the EU to protect and restore these ecosystems, including detailed monitoring obligations about the current ecological status. However, so far official monitoring data is limited to selected water bodies. This is where our citizen science project comes in: We want to evaluate to what extent participatory science with school students can support the ecological status assessment of smaller streams. During our three-year project, primary and secondary school students collect water samples from water bodies close to their school. These samples are then analysed for environmental DNA (eDNA) using metabarcoding at the university laboratory. eDNA metabarcoding is a molecular technique used to identify biological communities from DNA residues present in the environmental sample. In return, schools will receive information of the identified species from their water sample in a web-based application complementing their own observations at the stream. By integrating water protection-related content into biology and general science classes, we want to raise students' awareness and interest in protecting these water bodies, the trustworthiness of scientifically collected data, and knowledge of modern research methods. In addition, we provide teaching materials and a platform where participants can enter their observations and view the results of other groups. The project is funded by the German Environment Agency (UBA).