Bringing citizen science into school – and to the beach

It’s not every day that a school science class involves a trip to the beach. Instead of sunbathing or swimming, teenagers in the north of Portugal were invited to learn some chemistry while exploring their local coastlines.

José Luís Araújo, a junior researcher at the University of Porto, worked with colleagues to develop the ‘Perceiving the value of chemistry behind water and microplastics (PVC)’ citizen science project.

Using low-cost kits, over 440 students spent half a day sampling coastal water and conducting nitrate, nitrite, temperature, turbidity and pH measurements. In follow-up classes back at school, the students were set the task of evaporating a known quantity of a filtered sea water sample so that they could measure the resulting mass of dry salt crystals and therefore water salinity. Students also used digital microscopes to scour the samples for the presence of microplastics and classified those found according to their appearance.