Partnerships between classrooms and experts in different fields can be very fruitful when doing citizen science. Share this infographic with your students and ask them to think of a local issue that could be addressed through citizen science. Then ask them to think of experts who are working on that issue, either specific people (e.g., the recycling coordinator for your city) or categories of professionals (e.g., wildlife biologists).

Have students work in groups and select a citizen science project from National Geographic or SciStarter in which they would be interested in participating. Ask them to list the experts who are working on this project. If it’s not clear which experts work on the project, ask the students to imagine the kinds of expertise that would be useful for that project. Then have the students develop a list of questions they’d like to ask the experts. If possible, reach out to the experts with the questions.