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Citizen science has gained importance in recent years and revealed great potential, especially regarding science learning and environmental education. However, little is known about ways of supporting individual learning processes within citizen science. With this in mind, a home experiment set, the Nitrogen Box, was developed within a chemistry citizen science project on nitrogen pollution of water bodies. The aim of the box was primarily to deepen the subject matter and to sensitize the citizens to the topic. To gain deeper insights into the usability and added value of home experiments in a citizen science context, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten citizens. Analysis of these interviews revealed that the nitrogen box contributed to a consolidation and deepening of knowledge of the nitrogen problem in Northwest Germany. Home experiment sets like Nitrogen Box can motivate and enable citizens to engage more deeply with the scientific topic in the future, to reflect on it and discuss it. We discuss how heterogeneity of the target group presents challenges for designing citizen science projects and provide recommendations for the future projects.

Citizen science is an expanding field in public education and learning and can bridge the gap between science and society. This benefits not only just citizen learning and scientific research, but also earlier learning in formal science education. Citizen science can foster an understanding of engagement with science as well as the perception of the relevance of scientific topics. Based on a review of several citizen science projects in school contexts, potential learning outcomes are identified, showing that citizen science can enhance aspects including pupils' motivation, interest and knowledge as well as their scientific and communication skills. Project designs with a high level of pupil involvement are found to be particularly promising in terms of achieving learning objectives. However, curricular standards require the thorough preparation of citizen science projects to enable the development of their full potential for all participants.

Nitrogen is an element essential for survival ‐ in combination with other elements, it is the basis for plant and animal life forms, for example as a component of proteins and enzymes. Anthropogenic influences however have significantly destabilised the nitrogen cycle, which entails risks for alarming consequences for humans and the environment. One cause of the excessive input of reactive nitrogen compounds into the environment is combustion processes in traffic and industry resulting in high nitrogen oxide pollution especially in urban and congested areas. To reduce nitrogen oxide emissions, chemistry provides a solution with the SCR process, which has been manipulated by several car manufacturers. In the context of Dieselgate, this article uses innovative experiments to show how the nitrogen problem can be introduced into school education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability does not only concern the scientific world but is an increasing subject of discussion in society. This is where citizen science comes in and enables the active participation of citizens in current research topics. Involving pupils in citizen science projects has significant potential in many respects, not only in terms of education for sustainable development (ESD), but also in terms of promoting numerous basic competencies in the natural sciences. Based on a citizen science project on nitrate pollution of water bodies, concrete implementation possibilities are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]