An Early Beginning of Citizen Science: Adolescents Experiencing Urban Energy Usages and Air Pollution

Abstract

Here, we report on the process and development of high school science projects, which were inspired by a citizen science program focused on urban monitoring. We gathered and discussed two 1980s projects’ data, involving 2600 students, 80 teachers, 15 scientists and 20 stakeholders. We added recent survey data from speaking with the former participants. Our analysis revealed key findings: (1) the process of a student-driven science investigation engages students in the scientific practices; (2) it is important to bring together scientists, teachers and students, reflecting the importance of multi-dimensional learning; and (3) citizen science was born before the 1990s, when the term came into use. Our findings have implications for awareness of urban environmental issues and the links between the education system and society, young people working together with public and private managers and the science and technology sector instilling ideas on sustainability in the entire society.

1. Introduction

Citizen science (CS) [1] is public participation in research with the aim of increasing scientific knowledge [2,3,4,5]. Early examples of citizen science include public participation and involvement in astronomy (e.g., the American Association of Variable Star Observers), entomology (e.g., the North American Butterfly Association), or ornithology (e.g., the Audubon Society) [6,7,8]. CS raises the transparency of science and empowers citizens to learn about specific topics of research (e.g., energy use or air quality) besides the research process awareness. This environmental awareness, when grounded, might also enable citizens to campaign for socio-political modifications [9,10].

However, until the late 1990s, the scientific research conducted by non-professional scientists was very sporadic. Citizen science gained traction under the Obama Administration in the United States. In 2015, the Administration announced measures to increase public participation in science through citizen science: members of the public could participate in the scientific process, including identifying research questions, making new discoveries, collecting and analyzing data, interpreting results, developing technologies and applications and solving complex problems [11].

Before, the general perception was not the same: the (urban) environment in which we lived declined progressively through the end uses of energy or the quality of the air but did not affect politics, the productive world and, paradoxically, not even training. The 1980s in Europe were totally engaged by the essence of the global bipolarity centered on the two blocs, the Soviet Union and the United States of America. Bipolarity and its innumerable ramifications absorbed the main interests of the society at large, down to the personal sphere. No cultural room was left for topics such as the environment in which we live.

Still, a small community of enthusiasts, teachers, scientists and students moved the first, but not shy, steps toward awareness, acquired through practice and study. The science enthusiasts were adolescent citizen scientists, trainers at large (professors and scientists) and stakeholders (public administrators, managers of energy companies) in two high school science fair projects on urban monitoring inspired by a citizen science program in the early 1980s.

The purpose of this work is re-examining old projects and rediscovering meaningful messages for current citizen science movement.

2. Theoretical Framework

Key challenges and opportunities facing CS can be summarized as: (i) recognition of scientific value, (ii) scientific rigor and data quality, (iii) citizen (scientist) involvement, (iv) political guarantees for action on findings, (v) timely data, (vi) environmental policy issues on public education and (vii) participatory democracy [12]. Forty years ago, none of these instances was perceived as a societal priority. Connections between scientists and experts, stakeholders, decision makers and citizens were not at all customary in those years. During the 1980s, thinking about the importance of encouraging an intellectual environment in which citizens bring their skills to bear on the resolution of common problems was not at all customary [13]: “through participation in the analysis of their vulnerability, ordinary citizens may regain their status as active subjects, rather than remain undifferentiated objects in yet another expert discourse”. The link between CS and sustainability transitions is not automatic [14,15,16,17]. CS provides opportunities for connections among people; these circumstances generate a web of exchanges and new thinking on socio-economic–environmental circumstances [18]. Coupled with data gathering (i.e., both ecological and human dimensions data within a single community) today, CS is identified as public ecology projects, civic ecology, civic science or community-based management. These CS projects include working at the edges of fields and moving into each other’s field of expertise (boundary crossings) [19]. Today, participants, who provide information through apps regarding CS projects, are often granted permission to mine back emerging databases as a reward for their commitment. Internet became a case and tool connecting the collective abilities of large numbers of people to accomplish tasks with unprecedented social mobilization: speed, accuracy and scale [20]. In the pre-digital era, feedback to citizenship was the active participation of citizen scientists only. This certainly made their task more difficult, less fast and accurate, but the result in social terms were more effective, even in the absence of a well-established methodological tool for assessing learning outcomes [20]. Today, the majority of CS projects are contributory [9,21,22,23]; an overview of the types of CS approaches and techniques have been listed by Dickinson and Bonney [24].

3. Methodology

3.1. Data Collection

We gathered two science projects discussing the outcomes from 2600 involved students, 80 teachers, 15 scientists, 20 stakeholders and 5600 analyzed point data. The universities were not involved; only some individual scientists were included in these activities managed directly by the secondary schools. Local public administrations and national energy companies financed the activities.

The first science project was based in Turin, the second in Rome (Figure 1). Interviews were conducted at the interviewees’ homes, where the interview was 20 to 40 min in length. The interviews (Appendix A) were transcribed and examined separately (independently) by the researchers and school science teachers. Volunteers were identified using two approaches: suggestions from science teachers in the school and “snowball sampling”, where students’ families recruited future subjects from among their acquaintances.

3.1.1. Turin

A total number of 1687 interviews were conducted during the 1979/80 winter/spring period using a form of 32 questions (Figure 1).

The aim was to complete an analysis of the energy consumption of one urban district at the family level in order to obtain suitable recommendations for economic planning. The Crocetta district of Turin was identified for its average characteristics (social homogeneity) and for the availability of preliminary data on the electricity and gas consumption. Historically one of the most prestigious residential areas, the Crocetta district, peaked in the last century between the 1910s and 1930s, maintaining its reputation as a middle-class neighborhood. Since the 1950s, it has been known to host the current headquarters of the Polytechnic University of Turin. Here, population density progressively decreased from 14,000 inhabitants km⁻² during 1980s to the current 12,000 (source Città di Torino).

The primary aim of this activity was the support provided by stakeholders in terms of data and means of processing, local authorities (Regione Piemonte and Municipality of Turin) and various industries (ENI, CNEN, Fiat SES, ltalgas, ENEL, AEM Turin, and Olivetti).

For the calculation of monetary revaluations based on the consumer price index for the families of workers and employees we referred to ISTAT (URL rivaluta.istat.it/Rivaluta).

The original version of the project is available (in Italian) at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3859388 (Accessed on 21 June 2021).

3.1.2. Rome

The research involved approximately 2500 16–19-year-old STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) students, 50 STEM teachers and 15 principals from 15 senior high schools in Rome (I, III, V, IX and XI districts) and 1 at Pomezia. The size of the group (3 people, on average) was designed to standardize all activities, which had to take place in a total time between 20 and 30 min. The partitioning of the groups was optimized so that measurements could be made at all times and dates provided by the general calendar and that each group made no less than 4 observations. The students collected the samples and conducted the measurements.

The project #2 (“Ecology Project”) ran over the whole 1984/85 schoolyear. It analyzed two aspects: (i) the final uses of energy in private houses and (ii) urban pollution. The final uses of energy in private houses (i.e., familiar uses) meant final uses in the respective building types. Urban pollution meant monitoring gases (carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NO_x), sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and particulate matter (PM)); rain (pH and PM type); and the health conditions of two key species of the urban vegetation, stone (Pinus pinea L.) and maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton) and evergreen oak (Quercus ilex L.) (Figure 2).

The final uses of energy have been surveyed by means of 4000 interviews based on special questionnaires in sample city districts: (a) one 33-question inquiry form for final uses and (b) a 102-question survey for building types. These questionnaires were aimed at identifying the inhabitants’ attitudes about change: 4000 questionnaires of type (a) and 300 of type (b) were collected. To train the students, 40 conferences with experts were organized. The interactive meetings were intended to focus on how much people knew about air pollution and how people made choices in their day-to-day lives, which affects their personal exposure to air pollution.

The first part on energy was completed at the beginning of January, when, concomitantly, the second part on urban ecology started, observing over 26 monitoring points (Figure 3). The students, organized in 500 groups, surveyed until mid-May samples of three gases that were collected three days per week (Monday, Friday and Sunday) at 7:30 am, 2:30 pm and 6:30 pm using a 100 cc manual Dräger sampling system equipped with single-gas vials (CO 5–100 mg m⁻³, NO_x 50–3000 μg m^−-3, SO₂ 10–3000 μg m⁻³) (Figure 4). The air quality monitoring network of the city of Rome was launched in 1993. For this reason, it was not possible to carry out an external calibration. Instead, an internal calibration was performed through bump tests, evaluating the response of gas detectors against standards (zero-point and span-point tests) with the aim to optimize accuracy.

At the same time, they were locating and checking the health conditions of approximately 3000 pines, located in the proximity of gas sampling points. At individual points, the students, in addition to the measurement of gases, completed 40-question survey sheets on the vegetation status, sampled dust (adhesive tape and Pantone color comparison) and, when possible, rain (Carlo Erba pH strips). Weekly, meteorological data, supplied by ITAV and UCEA, were collected and joined to the general database.

The original version of the project is available (in three languages) at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3859410 (Accessed on 21 June 2021).

3.2. Participants

When we refer to “participants”, we mean the participants in the old projects. The same participants (a part of them) have been contacted today to obtain feedback.

It would have been optimal that participants for this study were drawn using a maximum variation sampling method to identify a diverse variety of participant experiences and to identify patterns and differences among participants. This has not been the case, since many years have passed. Therefore, with semi-structured interviews via Google Docs, we retrieved most of the participants from that time that we could find today. Our current audience consists of adults over 18 who would have been teenagers (16–19 years) at the time of the projects. The survey questions (

Table 1. Former adolescents participating in 1980s projects interviewed today. These data are retrospective analysis of high school students’ attitudes and understanding about their involvement in collecting data regarding energy use and air quality during the 1980s in Turin and Rome, Italy. The numbers refer to today’s perception of the past participatory experience of former adolescents determined through questions that refer to the behavioral, cognitive and working spheres. Questionnaires completed in February 2021 by a sample of CS projects’ former participants. Individuals who completed surveys (N = 34) were more likely to be female (55%), age 55 ± 4, education level (78% post-secondary), STEM education level (74% post-secondary). Answers as a percentage.

Dimension	Question	No
Behavioral dimension	Before participating in the research did you have the perception that the use of energy or the situation of the pollution of the cities were a potential danger?	20.0 1
	At the time of the project, were you aware that the use of fossil fuels was potentially dangerous to health?	13.4 1
	Have the results you obtained during the field experiment changed your way of thinking?	15.1
Cognitive dimension	Were the interviewed people aware, at that time, that energy could be used more effectively?	25.5
	Were you, yourself, aware that there were technologies that allowed a more efficient and rational use of energy?	11.8
	After the research work, has your experience, over the years, allowed you to adopt a more conscious behavior?	1.0
	Has this experience changed your life in any way?	17.8
Working dimension	Has the research experience influenced your choice of job or the jobs you have done in your life?	66.7
	Has it influenced personal choices in the family or in the professional sphere?	38.4 2

¹ a quarter of the responses focused on human health; ² half of the positive responses focused on the professional sphere.

) were intended to address our awareness objectives only. The intrinsic limit of this approach is given by the nature of the reasoned sample obtained. The advantage is the vocational consequences of participating in these extra-curricular activities. Major nodes of engagement were analyzed according to Phillips et al. [25].

Initial criteria for participant selection into both programs included grade-point average, standardized test scores in STEM and level of responsibility. Our data included evaluation of the student display boards and oral interview excerpts using post hoc rubrics aligned with high school STEM practices and with an explanation rubric drawn, including question, hypotheses, methods, results and discussion based on those practices that, years later, will be considered acknowledged procedure of scientific investigations [26].

4. Results

The rationale of this study is re-examining old projects and reliving significant messages for current CS activities. Here, we describe here two bottom-up approaches to knowledge and scientific research projects inspired by the CS approach, which took place in 1979/80 and 1984/85, respectively, in the cities of Turin and Rome (Figure 5). These are subjective positions, as it is not universally agreed that CS can be said to be preferable, or at least complementary, to science done by professionals. This is partly for the reasons explained afterward in the conclusion section, but also because it is possible to arrive at non-replicable results that therefore have a limited cognitive value. However, CS represents an effective way to raise awareness of important issues, such as ecology and the environment, and, therefore, from this point of view, CS is a thought-provoking methodology.

4.1. Turin

This investigation started from a point that seemed, in those times, of substantial importance: in Italy, numerous and qualified contributions addressed the problem of how new buildings should be designed and built in order to save money and energy. The key results (Appendix B) confirmed that the autonomous environmental heating, compared to centralized, had some advantages in terms of consumption for heated volumes, and showed the need for having some direct tool of control of heating consumption. Finally, a remarkable propensity for installation of solar water heaters was revealed, even in the face of significant projected spending levels.

The clear preference for gas or mixed cooking was confirmed, powered by mains gas, in a situation where the gas distribution was provided to practically all homes. The electric stove was not very diffused, on the other hand, throughout Italy. The mandatory electrical uses survey results allowed us to estimate about 600–700 and 1000–1200 kWh as the average annual consumption of washing machines and 1200 kWh for dishwashers. This result constitutes an important confirmation data specific to the Crocetta district, previously, estimated by proxies only. The washing machine was used for no more than two times a week, and mostly in the morning, in 70% of cases. The washing machine would make a significant contribution to the formation of the peak load in the morning. The dishwasher, on the other hand, did not seem to create similar problems, mainly used in off-peak times: especially after 19:00 and between 12:00 and 16:00. The iron was used, in most cases, not more twice a week, with a relative consumption in the order of 100–150 kWh year⁻¹.

The historical narrative of the student report (Appendix C), the Councilor of the Region, (Appendix D), and the scientist (Appendix E) describe for themselves the cultural status (including the use of time in the everyday life) and the societal hot topics of that time.

4.2. Rome

During the field activity (February–May 1985), about 1076 observations were made, three observations per day, for three days a week, on 25 points (Appendix F). Carbon monoxide did not exceed 10 mg m⁻³, and sulfur dioxide, 10 μg m⁻³, although there are sporadic observations all over the city with values ten times higher for both gases (Figure 6). Nitrogen oxides, particularly in the south and north of the city, reached very high values, 500 μg m⁻³, in more than a third of the observations (mainly after 18:30, during Sunday, as well).

Today, the European regulations have promoted a decrease in air pollution emissions, courtesy of the conversion of the industry and the implementation by abatement technologies. Again, today, the fact that passive air pollution adversely affects trees by inducing tissue damage in vascular plants, damaging leaves and increasing leaf senescence rates and plant growth rates, reducing nutrient availability, is well-documented [26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33]. Our data, which refer to the past four decades (when there was no clear scientific evidence on the use of urban trees as bio-indicators), show that spatial analysis of leaf damages by pollutant concentrations did not reveal specific hotspots.

Alongside the presentation by the scientific world (Appendix F), the assessment statements by the President of Province of Rome, the Councilor for IP and Culture, and the Councilor for Health and the Environment (Appendix G), show how the complexity of society can be positively well exploited to improve its future. “This future, inevitably, must pivot on the younger generations throughout current industrial culture and environmental protection”; this is defined through the words of one of key stakeholders, the executive delegated to the Ecology Project by the Province of Rome (Appendix H). The most important feedbacks are those of the main actors, students (Appendix I) and teachers (Appendix J): the enthusiasm of active participation (e.g., one of the gas measurements was carried out at 7:30 in the morning, Sunday included) resulted in enhanced awareness and perspective.

4.3. Participation Outcomes

All interviewed stated that their former participation in science fair projects helped them develop their scientific literacy, their academic abilities and their understanding of the science and technology at large (Table 1). The main talked-about outcome (N = 27 of 34 semi-structured interviews) of the CS projects was personal growth, expressed in diverse behaviors related to professional prospects, technical training, personal competence, and flexibility. Another form of perceived personal growth was greater trust of scientists.

A broad conceptualization highlighted how former participants discussed environmental awareness, which included direct actions to conserve energy and to protect the environment at large (e.g., intra- and extra-family transfer of virtuous behavior) as well as more general environmentalism-associated behaviors (e.g., direct involvement in environmental organizations). Former CS projects associated these conservation-oriented attitudes to the CS project in which they were involved because of acquired greater knowledge.

The majority of former participants (N = 31) express today a (past) interest in CS projects (84% of students gave scores above 4 on a 1–5 point scale of interest) from the minimum average (3.7) up to the maximum (4.5) in students with good STEM background. The type of student was related to participation in the CS project, where students with good STEM scientific background had the highest rate of participation. The participation rate was not explained by the school performances, but the level of science education of the students influenced it.

5. Discussion

As other authors have done recently [33] we, then, focused on CS topics that are on the leading edge of environmental research, and disseminating articles from the primary literature allowed us to mature crucial background. The substantial knowledge transfer activities started from the scientists who provided the scientific information current at that time. The information was conveyed to a wide audience of students, with the participation of teachers. The most motivated students became “researchers” and provided the basic data to the scientists, who elaborated with interpretations, which were then discussed with students and teachers.

5.1. Specific Outcome Obtained by the Projects

In discussing the specific results of the two projects, we summarize the whole considerations on the energy and environmental aspects. On energy issues, it is interesting to highlight that to the question, “If the system was centralized, would you be available to install a system of heat-meter, and therefore to pay the heating as a function of the used heat, if the cost of installing the meters was between 200 and the 500 thousand Italian lire?”, a total of 64% of the interviewees declared that they were willing to face extraordinary spending (650–1640 EUR, 2020 prices, corresponding on average to a monthly wage of a worker in 1979). This early attitude was so true that, a couple of decades later, it became state law. In Italy, in fact, two legislative acts (Decreti Legislativi 19 August 2005, n. 192 and 29 December 2006, n. 311) impose mandatory thermostatic valves, correcting some of the parts contained in the specific law for the accounting of heat in buildings (Legge 9 gennaio 1991, n. 10). The thermostatic valve allows a considerable energy saving, less waste of energy based on the ambient temperature or the type of regulation: lower when leaving the house, or when a room is sunnier. The mandatory thermostatic valves automatically regulate the flow of hot water based on the pre-set and desired temperature, selected on a special graduated knob. This valve gradually closes as the room temperature—suitably detected by a sensor—approaches the desired one. When the temperature is reached, the hot water flow is diverted to the other radiators still open. On pollution issues, other authors report much lower average data than that measured in the 1985 study by Roman students. There was no permanent pollutant-monitoring network, and the measured values were decidedly high when compared with international guidelines [26,27]. Not to mention, the top concentrations we measured in at least a third of cases in the northeast area of Rome; for instance, the demonstrated existing correlation between Roman air pollution and respiratory diseases [33,34], or myocardial infarction [35], were obtained referring to mean values of CO, SO₂ and NO_x that were less than half of those measured ten years before their studies. In addition, similar conclusions on the effects on human health have been obtained in other Italian cities, referring to pollutant concentrations of the same order of magnitude [28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38]. The works of other authors are more recent and refer to a socio-political context in which pollution has already been the subject of legislation aimed at its reduction. In the 1970s and 1980s, in the Italian cities, there was no monitoring network, although the emissions of pollutants were extremely worrying. In particular, it was believed that the industrial cities of the north were the most polluted [39]. The results of the Rome project, on the other hand, show that air quality was also to be considered in non-industrial cities in other latitudes.

By examining the historical narrative in the stories of the various stakeholders, the word “peace” emerges (as opposed to the word “war”). In that historical period, strongly dominated by the logic of hegemonic blocks, people’s daily attention was completely clouded by the fear of war (which ended in Italy only 40 years earlier). The energetic and ecological themes, as emerged from the activity of the citizen science projects operated by the students, were felt themes. Nevertheless, given the geopolitical situation, they could not yet be priority themes for the individual. The great merit of these “enthusiasts” was the seminal one, a sowing that produced fruit, even tangible, years later (Figure 7).

5.2. Engagement/Learning/Cognitions

Engagement has been analyzed to define student dropout rates, school achievement or reform efforts, but engagement may refer merely to whether a CS participant finalizes a task or is paying attention [25]. Engaging in the strategic activities of science is more than simply going through the motions [40]. Engaging in the research provided a chance for students (Appendix K) to think through that practice, in particular when they discussed their labor to an audience [41]. These seminal CS projects allowed students to build an understanding of training and involved them in the epistemologies of that activity, so engaging in awareness [34]. Engagement is ductile, tangled to learning and precursor of learning [25,42,43,44,45,46], and cultural and ecological influences (experiences, friends, family and community structures) are quite important [47]. Today, we know that citizen scientists are particularly devoted persons who care about their own environment and the (quality of) data they collect [25]. They experience stimuli that influence emotional dispositions, which influence attitudes, values, behaviors, and overall experiences [25]. In the 1980s, these aspects were not known, but what emerges from our experiences evaluated over time is that the “fully engaged” participants developed an awareness of the issues addressed at the time in order to orient their professional or family life in a way that they could cultivate those issues.

5.3. Limitations

The most important limitations of the work reported here are both the spatial and temporal resolutions of the analyses.

Another limitation was that of not being able to make biunique the direction of the relations that began with the scientists, passing through the teachers, then the students, to get to society.

One barrier to the use of information produced through citizen science is the perception that the quality of research carried out by students does not have the same value as the methods used in research laboratories. In the described cases, we consider these claims as minor limitations that the monitoring data used in the analysis were subject to several uncertainties and biases. Furthermore, guidelines for the predictor variables were a priori, chosen based on expert judgment. There is manifestly some factor of uncertainty when restraining the directions of effects.

These studies, in analogy to those described by other authors [47,48,49], do not peculiarly aim to produce reproducible findings but look for lifting up topics for societal awareness, possible policy initiatives and, in any case, further advanced studies.

Moving CS toward coupled systems research requires: (i) standardization of a knowledge base, (ii) increased infrastructure support, (iii) quality data, (iv) effective tools of support, (v) analysis of feedback loops between participants and studied systems and (vi) the recruitment of participants [19]. In these seminal projects, we described the preliminary energies dedicated to move the first five issues forward, certainly not meeting the current needs of the CS projects. Regarding the recruitment of the participants, their preparation and the returns, in terms of social penetration of the topics examined, we do not think there is room for improvement compared to the approaches adopted at those times. The storage, in particular handling, and analysis of all data was the most critical part. To date, there is no complete (hard copy) copy of all individual surveys made.

While scholars in recent times have begun to discover the combination of outcomes at multiple scales, Jordan et al. [50] argue that this should be at the vanguard of future CS approaches.

6. Conclusions

Our conclusions must be considered as tentative only, as the information that we have discussed in this piece have been assembled serendipitously. The projects we described have shown multi-pronged citizen science approaches with perceptive discoveries. Open-mindedness can be taught [36]: those students (both their familiar and their school environments) revealed a progress in their awareness about energy management, urban ecology and air pollution [51]. Moreover, a bridge was built between professional scientists, stakeholders and the local communities. More than 30 years earlier, according to Mahajan et al. [49] and Cappa et al. [52], with the non-digital technology available, the projects involved a sensationally higher number of active participants. The results, now as then, are analogous.

Today, citizen science can be seen as a discipline per se [49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56], including gamified approaches [57,58]. The Citizen Cyberscience Center involving CERN, the UN Institute for Training and Research in Switzerland and Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) in the UK [12] are just a few examples. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) adopted the Aarhus Convention, giving European citizens the right to participate in environmental decision-making; the European Commission and European Environment Agency recognized the value of citizen science for environmental research and monitoring [59], including policymaking, with the establishment of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) [60]. Furthermore, the citizen science community has been developing a data and metadata standard for Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) in partnership with SciStarter.org and other partners. Today, CS comprehends a multiplicity of projects appealing to the general community in the training of science. With the opportunities that technology makes available to society today, they span from direct participatory research to large web-based actions (an up-to-date database at URL scistarter.com (Accessed on 21 June 2021)) [61,62]. However, we believe that today is also the son of the sporadic and seminal activities of the recent past. Moreover, this is especially true in Europe, and even more in Italy, where those students helped define and address future research questions and future citizen-led initiatives relevant to the society and their own local environment. Participation in the projects had the potential to deepen existing places attachment [62,63]. In the case of air pollution, CS allows the community to more clearly understand the fine-graded differences in pollution concentration, and this type of approach, if integrated with government-sponsored public information, might provide more timely and accurate air quality alerts [64]. Although different CS understandings were utilized [64,65,66,67], this has not permitted the definition from being taken up broadly and becoming extremely popular. These experiences show that the practices were already in use well before the Anglo–Saxon term was introduced.

On 9th May 1985, Alessandro Pertini, the President of the Italian Republic, hosted a delegation of 200 students, “veterans” from the activities of the Ecology Project, to obtain their first comments and feedback. This episode, per se, explains the social return of the activity of these adolescents, early pioneers of the participatory ecology, not acknowledged as example of citizen science, having arisen much before the term itself.