CEDAR: An Augmented Reality Mobile Application Using a Participatory Design Framework for Citizen Science Data Sensing

Citizen science initiatives focused on ecology engage individuals in collecting environmental data, aiming to cultivate environmentally conscious individuals. Addressing limitations of traditional electronic platforms and scientific methods in enhancing citizen science, the CEDAR (Collective Environmental Data Sensing using AR) project proposes Augmented Reality (AR) as a critical tool for bridging the gap between individuals, data, and location, aiming to foster a novel mode of experiential engagement and provoke more interaction and reflection. To achieve this, the practices of the CEDAR project are structured into two phases: the first develops a participatory design framework and a new toolkit for citizen science workshops, while the second integrates gamification with AR to create an immersive environment for continuous data interaction. This paper outlines a participatory design framework for an AR-based citizen science application, designed to motivate participants to actively collect, interpret, and visualize data. It provided essential insights for AR application development, exploring data's potential to elicit aesthetic experiences, and introducing an interactive dimension to participatory sensing.