ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how school-based citizen science partnerships can foster teachers’ personal and professional growth. Drawing on the Mutualistic Ecology of Citizen Science (MECS) approach, we describe three case studies of the formation of three school-based citizen science partnerships in Northern Israel which brought together teachers and other school practitioners, policymakers, educational researchers, and other scientists who engage in citizen science to advance their respective fields. We draw on a boundary crossing framework within this multi-sector partnership to elucidate the processes whereby teachers, in particular, go through as well as how they can be supported to realize their potential for growth in these partnerships. Organizing our data using an action–(re)action timeline technique allowed us to identify six successive phases within each of the three case studies that could be compared based on the identification, coordination, and reflection boundary crossing mechanisms. Our findings show how the design changes between the first and second iterations—having mainly to do with the nuanced roles each of the partners took—ultimately led teachers to frame their practice more expansively and take more productive agency in their efforts.
