Cli-DaRe: A Citizen Science project for the digitization of Italian secular precipitation records involving high school students Article Swipe
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· 2023
· Open Access
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· DOI: https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2023-644
· OA: W4383370784
A wealth of data from past meteorological observations in Italy were published in official yearbook and other monographs as monthly totals based on data from hundreds of precipitation recording stations. However only a limited fraction of these data is currently available in a computer-readable format. Cli-DaRe is a citizen science project initiated in spring 2022 as a result of a special session on citizen science in climate data rescue held within the 4th National Conference of the Italian Association of Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology (ASIAM) in Milan on 18 February 2022. The project was promoted by a working group composed by the Coauthors of the present contribution and involved Italian high-school students in the digitization of these data. More than 350 students from 13 high schools were involved. Each school received a pdf copy of the pages to digitize, along with a spreadsheet template for data entry and a tutorial. Then, each student had to digitize the assigned data and the schools provided with the filled spreadsheets. Students also had the opportunity to join a training program consisting in a list of seminars and in specific training activities to make them aware of the potentialities of the recovered data. The expected contribution from students in terms of data digitization is estimated in about 5000 man-hours. Besides the contribution of students, the project requires a great effort also from their teachers and from the authors for organising and coordinating the activities and to revise the data. It turned out that the project has a great educational value, offering young students an easy hands-on experience with climate data and making them more aware on how science investigate past climatic trends. This contribution aims to present the project and its first results, as well as an outlook on future developments and possible coperation opportunities.
