YouCount Denmark wins prize for best poster at the Engaging Citizen Science Conference

YouCount and SEEDS organised a workshop on empowering youth through Youth Citizen (Social) Science at the Engaging Citizen Science Conference in Aarhus, Denmark. In the poster session, the Danish YouCount team won the prize for best poster.

Our colleagues Cathrine Winther (PhD student, Aalborg University), Michael Søgaard Jørgensen (Associate professor, AU) and Eglė Butkevičienė (Professor, Kaunas University of Technology) participated in the Engaging Citizen Science Conference in Aarhus, Denmark from 25-26th of April. Together with Claire Murray from SEEDS, the YouCount project organised a workshop on Empowering youth through Youth Citizen (Social) Science  (Y-CSS) in order to bring together European citizen science projects and youth researchers. Power balances in projects were explored and empowerment of youth through Y-C(S)S was discussed. Participants shared experiences on how they are engaging youth in co-designing project activities, while paying attention to hidden power structures in society, which might hamper the development of inclusive and equal project relations. The workshop further focused on challenges and possibilities that can arise in Y-C(S)S projects, and how they can be overcome to foster youth empowerment.

"It's great to see so much going on concerning CS. There has been a more significant focus on the involvement of children and young people in the research processes, which is positive. However, I still miss concentration on the social aspects that citizens can contribute expertise to and involvement in other parts than just collecting data. I hope we can help develop methods to do so through YouCount."

by Cathrine Winther

As part of the conference, Cathrine further shared initial results and experiences from her PhD project "Genskab" in the form of a poster (see photo above) and presentation (see gallery at the bottom). "Engaging urban youth as citizen scientists in co-designing sustainable and youth-friendly societies" won the poster prize in the category "Approaches to co-creation in citizen science".

"I had spent a lot of energy on the poster, so I'm happy that many people had the time to come by and have a look. It was my first conference attendance, so it also felt extra special. I won three cups from Royal Copenhagen, but I think it is the honour that matters the most :-) "

by Cathrine Winther

Did you get curious about the Danish case and want to know more about how our Danish colleagues work with youth? You find the case description here and click through their research process below: