Relevance of mathematics lessons from the students' perspective

The relevance that students attribute to mathematics education is a crucial variable for its success. Against this background, it is surprising that there is little international scientific evidence on these ideas. Instead, it is evident in various countries, including Austria, that students in secondary school have at best fragile ideas about the relevance of mathematics instruction: For example, it is usually emphasized that mathematics instruction serves to cope with everyday situations, but then it is also quickly recognized that this explanation does not apply to the content currently covered in class. Against this background, it is questionable how these ideas can be captured and further developed in order to enable more students to learn mathematics in a meaningful way. In this sense, this project sees itself as a contribution to the further development of mathematics education in Austria and beyond.

This project relies on the expertise of students as Citizen Scientists in the collection and analysis of data. The project aims to identify phenomena and generate explanations. The guiding research questions are which ideas about the relevance of mathematics education exist, how these can be meaningfully collected, and how they can be developed and evolve.

Students from four eighth- or ninth-grade classes at two middle schools and two high schools will participate. They will be interviewed first, but are already active as Citizen Scientists in the analysis of the data by adding their perspectives to those of the research team. At a research day at the university, further ideas on relevance to mathematics are presented and discussed with them. Some students stay on longer in the project if they wish, refining the survey instrument, collecting data themselves in parallel classes, and evaluating it on a second research day. The added value for the students involved is, on the one hand, that they gain insights into how the research results come about and, on the other hand, that they themselves can open up new dimensions of the relevance of mathematics for themselves. Teachers learn new methods to address the relevance of mathematics in the classroom and to motivate their students for mathematics lessons.

This is a project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research.

The shrinking town of Eisenerz lies at the foot of the Erzberg mountain, Austria’s largest and best-known site of extraction of iron ore. The post-industrial town is experiencing a rural exodus, which concerns women in particular. The spatial practices of mining areas have been under-researched using inclusive methods. Mining is predominantly narrated in male, heroic narratives, while counter-narratives of repair, care, reproduction and maintenance are mostly overlooked. 

Within this complex field, the project focuses on intersectional feminist perspectives on an area of exhaustion; it will collect feminist post-extractive stories to broaden the perception of mining areas and strengthen the focus on feminist narrations for future perspectives. We ask: Which practices contribute to the continuance of the community? The project shows and discusses the spatial practices of repair amid extraction with multiple actors. We work with local associations to reach diverse groups. 

Thinking and knowing with the diverse, often surprising, actors and their practices, the citizen scientists shape the project on several levels: they collect and locate stories of practices, they research private archives, and they report and sometimes even organize. Processes of mutual learning take place in meetings and shared activities, and through the process of transformation into drawings by the East Styrian artist Roswitha Weingrill. Based on collaborative science and an affirmative and inclusive approach, citizens are involved in decisions on many levels, especially concerning their contributions and their representation. The collected knowledge will contribute to creating imaginations of future stories of a liveable community. With the help of artistic methods, these will be illustrated and made accessible in public discussions. 

Via strategies of making visible, bringing together, and anticipating and activating futures, and also with the help of artistic tools of knowledge production, this project will show practices as constant reparative counter-practices amid extraction. An ethical, intersectional framework of feminist citizen science will revive the margins of how we know about environmental exploitation to deliver a complex, yet profound, image of a polyphonic Anthropocene that allows for imagining dynamic assemblages after exploitation. 

Photo gallery

• © Roswitha Weingrill © Roswitha Weingrill
• © Roswitha Weingrill © Roswitha Weingrill
•  

Youth and single parents doing urban research

 About the project

The climate crisis repeatedly exposes existing weaknesses in democratic practice. On the one hand, groups that are most affected by the consequences of climate change are often underrepresented in the prevailing political and planning practice (participation crisis). On the other hand, social inequality and the exclusion of people from political decision-making processes increases the loss of trust in political decision-makers and institutions (democracy crisis). Therefore, dealing with the consequences of the climate crisis in research and planning cannot be done without looking at ecological and social justice. Who can have a say in crises and help develop solutions? Who suffers most from the consequences of the crises and who does urban development reach?

What is the aim of the project?

The project aims to explore possible applications of Citizen Social Science (CSS) in urban development, especially regarding the potential of involving usually underrepresented groups. The central research interest is to identify to what extent CSS can complement transformation processes, such as the redesign of a street space in an urban context, with the perspectives of marginalized groups. For this purpose, two Citizen Science experiments will be conducted with two selected groups using the participation process "zukunftsfitte Gumpendorfer Straße" in Vienna's 6th district: Single parents and students. The results of these CSS Experiments will help to understand how vulnerable groups can be better represented in transformation processes of urban development leading to environmental and social justice.

What happens with the results?

The project is gathering experience on how to involve marginalized groups in urban development transformation processes through CSS activities. Based on this experience, recommendations for the implementation of CSS in urban development will be developed regarding process design and application of methods.

Based on the perspectives of two marginalized groups, complementary knowledge bases are generated for the transformation of the Gumpendorfer Straße. This knowledge will be handed over to the planning office PlanSinn, which is implementing the participation process for the redesign of Gumpendorfer Straße in a bidding consortium with CarlaLo on behalf of the district.

How can I participate?

The project structure is divided into two dialog groups: single parents and students. The participation for the group of single parents is open to single parents in Vienna who regularly visit the area of Gumpendorfer Straße. Participation is possible at our website.

The group of students will be approached directly by the project team through interested teachers at different schools in Mariahilf. Information on the progress of the project will be published on the website of the TU Wien Library.

Who is behind the project?

The project part on the group of single parents is led by Tamara Bauer, who is currently writing her diploma thesis at the future.lab Research Center of the Vienna University of Technology. 

The project part on the group of students is led by Sebastian Harnacker, project staff member at the TU Wien Library. The project will be carried out in cooperation with partners from the participation and transformation process.

The project is part of the research project "OPUSH" at the TU Wien. The aim of the international research project "OPUSH" is to make knowledge about sustainable development visible and accessible to local communities. Project partners from the four European cities of Barcelona, Delft, Tallinn and Vienna are conducting research together with citizens; libraries and other local cultural institutions are playing a mediating role.

What are Urban Heat Stories?

It will get hotter and hotter in the city over the next few years. The impact of heat can vary greatly from neighborhood to neighborhood. It depends not only on the building density or the degree of sealing in the city, but also on the age and state of health of the people and their immediate living environment.

The Urban Heat Stories research project therefore collects individual heat experiences of vulnerable groups in Vienna. The aim is to make the diverse concerns and demands of city dwellers visible. 

The aim is also to develop a chatbot pilot. It should provide insights into the social dimension of heat at city level. On this basis, recommendations for sustainable urban development in the face of rising temperatures can be expanded to include a social dimension, thus integrating the needs of vulnerable groups into planning in the long term

How does Urban Heat Stories work?

The main cooperation partners are the city's residents. In a two-part workshop, they first map their locations in the public space around their homes. The temperatures of the localized places are investigated using mobile sensors in a joint perceptual and exploratory walk. The measured temperatures are compared with the personal perception of heat. This provides a basis for discussion of the Urban Heat Stories. These stories are the foundation for the development of the new chatbot pilot on heat perception in the city. 

How can I participate in the research?

Starting in September 2023, four workshops with senior citizens as Citizen Scientists have taken place around Quellenplatz (10th district, Vienna). The format is to be continued in spring/summer 2024 in other districts with other target groups. A first chatbot pilot will additionally be launched in winter 2024. 

Upcoming events: 

• Urban Heat Stories at the Citizen Science Day at the Natural History Museum Vienna: As part of the Citizen Science Day (06.04.2024, NHM Vienna), interested citizens will have the opportunity to learn about the project, share their own stories and measure temperatures with us. We are looking forward to your visit!
• Citizen Science Award 2024: We are delighted to have been selected as one of eight projects for the Citizen Science Award 2024. Workshops with schools will take place between April and July 2024. Details on how to register at: www.youngscience.at/csa.

If you are interested in conducting a Citizen Science research on heat experiences (e.g. workshop participation, chatbot test) in your neighborhood, we would also be pleased to receive a short initiative mail.

Podcast episode

As part of the episode "The Citizen Science Award 2024 - behind the scenes", Sebastian Harnacker presented the project in the podcast Wissen macht Leute. You can listen to the episode on our blog or on the podcast app of your choice (the episode is in German). You can find all the details here.

What happens with the results?

The findings will provide the basis for recommendations in urban planning and will be incorporated into current Viennese planning projects (e.g. WienNeu+, 10th district). They will also be published on the website of the future.lab Research Center of TU Wien. For participants - as co-researchers - the results will also be made available free of charge as a print edition.

Who is responsible for the project?

The project team consists of researchers from the future.lab Research Center and TU Wien Bibliothek as well as residents as citizen scientists. Urban research does not take place in a laboratory, but together on site. Residents contribute their experiences and interests.

The project is being implemented - as part of the European research project "OPUSH" - in close cooperation with the partner project Heat Chronicles (Cròniques de la Calor) of Open Systems at the Universidad de Barcelona. There is cooperation at local level with the City of Vienna (MA 22, MA 25, GB*), the Vienna Chamber of Labor and the Natural History Museum.

What roles are there in the project?

• The transdisciplinary project team is made up of the research group of the future.lab Research Center and the TU Wien Bibliothek. The TU Wien Bibliothek can draw on experience in the fields of big data and urban heat, among others.
• The residents participate as citizen scientists in the development of content for the Chatbot and are central to the collection of data in the form of micro-stories.
• The Natural History Museum is involved as a local stakeholder with extensive experience with citizen science experiments. 
• Local project partners are also the municipal departments of the City of Vienna MA 21 and MA 22 (expertise and meteorological background data), the Vienna Chamber of Labour (e.g. social space monitor), OpenKnowledgeMaps (data visualization) and Wunderbyte (chatbot programming).

It is an open secret that hardware operating on our smart devices contains not only plastic, but also conflict materials such as tungsten, tin, tantulum and gold. Technology is therefore not neutral. These resources are mined in conflict regions, assembled to electric circuits under harmful labour conditions and mostly ending up in contaminating landfills. This pollution is best understood as an enactment of ongoing colonial relations to Land. 

Arts-based research methods seize artistic practice to unpack complexity. Through opening up our artistic research project to citizens we want to make this phenomenon tangible. Intersecting Art and Science needs to be an experience of empowerment, of encouragement to find new ways.

This Citizen Science projecttackles sensitive issues through an online game that introduces the player to alternative technologies. Participants in our workshops (at the Technisches Museum Wien, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna children’s university, Maker Fair Vienna and three Viennese schools) can become players and navigate through different scenes to meet specific characters as avatars. These avatars represent real people from around the world, collaborators in our main research project. Through this form of interactive storytelling young people are invited to become inventors of green and fair hardware themselves, to network among each other and transform their ideas into actual prototypes in the next phase of the project. 

Through the term Ethical Hardware we want to describe technology that does not harm the environment, but embraces restorative practices for the benefit of nature and inhabitants alike.

There are strong social movements among teenage, female* and non-binary creatives who share similar values (Extinction Rebellion, Fridays For Future). Our Citizen Science Project addresses the lack of communication between academia and the youth movement. We would like to explore the creativity and transformative work performed by young citizens, specifically from minorities, by offering a playful entry point to our research. We hope that the visions contributed by CSs will transform our theoretical definition of what imagining future technologies entails, and vice versa give participants the chance to discover alternative futures. This way together we hope to gain the necessary strengths to face this crisis. 

Our research team composed by artists researchers Stefanie Wuschitz and Patrícia J. Reis at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and the citizen scientists will together with the Technisches Museum Wien (TMW), our national research partner, make the research results operative for use in classrooms and after school programs.