Citizen Science Toolkit For Deliberative Processes in Climate Action

Citizens assemblies are bodies formed by citizens to be informed for deliberate on collective issues. In this case, climate change and its causes, consequences and challenges. They follow participatory mechanisms intending to generate policy recommendations. Citizen science emerges as a potent tool for bridging scientific evidence with policy recommendations.

In this presentation, we introduce a novel toolkit designed to incorporate citizen science into various phases of citizen climate assemblies. These phases encompass framing climate change issues, providing knowledge to citizens, and formulating policy recommendations. More specifically, we unveil the initial version of our toolkit, tailored to facilitate the integration of citizen science projects into citizen climate assemblies. Through citizen science, participants in these assemblies can gain hands-on experience in real environments, enhancing their understanding of conservation issues and contributing to policy recommendations.

Thus, the primary goal of the toolkit is to empower participants to gain knowledge from citizen science projects while ensuring inclusivity and accessibility in the participatory process. It also aims to create an immersive experience for participants, fostering value and behavioural changes. Development of this toolkit is underway at the Ebre Bioterritori Living Lab, serving as a central hub for co-creating and testing citizen science tools for climate assemblies.

The co-creation community, which encompasses stakeholders such as policy-makers, citizen assembly facilitators, professional scientists, and citizens, has meticulously selected projects and identified relevant activities to catalyse climate change actions.  In summary, we will present our research on creating an inclusive, accessible, and practical citizen science toolkit that aims to empower citizens to collectively address climate change through participatory processes in citizen climate assemblies.