Can We Make an App for that? Integration of School Students within a Research-education Cooperation

Co-operation between school students and scientists in joint research projects can offer great benefits for both sides. School students get an insight into the process of knowledge production and can contribute with fruitful and unconventional ideas. Nevertheless, differ-ences in working methods and habits as well as missing co-operation interfaces between schools and universities often lead to rather limited and partial integration in research. Fur-thermore, research processes are often very theoretical, intransparent and hard to under-standfor non-scientists. This paper presents two case studies in a research-education cooperation project. Students from a secondary technical school (age 17-18) worked on small research topics and created geo spatial web applications (apps) as final products. By creating apps the whole research process was more transparent and ended up in a functional digital product with an addi-tional value for the project, the students and the schools. The students contributed with their technical skills and learned how to answer specific questions by selecting suitable methods as well as collecting and analysing data. They finally structured and documented their work for a scientific publication.