Seminary Education

The capabilities of Zooniverse were showcased to seminaries who applied for, or received, DoSER Science for Seminaries grants (Science for Seminaries 2024). Cosmology, anthropology, evolution, climate, and ecology are all scientific topics represented on the Zooniverse platform that are relevant to theological themes. A particularly successful outcome of this outreach was the decision by a professor at Hood Theological Seminary, a historically black graduate and professional school sponsored by the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, to integrate several research projects into her course on the history of Christianity in the United States, a course taken by all seminary students at Hood.

During the spring semester of 2020, students were assembled into small teams and asked to choose a project from a given list. They were then asked to participate in their chosen project over the course of the semester while reflecting along with other team members on what they were learning and its relevance to course themes. Students initially were asked to produce podcasts on their experiences; however, pandemic constraints necessitated that the students write papers instead. For example, students working on Hubble Asteroid Hunter (Garvin et al. 2022; Kruk et al. 2022) reflected on the potential threat of asteroids to life on Earth; students working on Notes from Nature (Matsunaga, Mast, and Fortes 2016) reflected on the relationship between plant and animal habitat loss and human health; and students working on Parasite Safari reflected on the church’s ecological responsibility. Students who worked on Snapshot Elephants for Africa related social behaviors of male elephants to structures in the Black church (S. Grant, personal communication, October 25, 2021).

Features that made this model successful include providing students with the opportunity to choose projects of interest; sustained engagement in projects over the course of the semester; and collaboration with other students, which reflects the collaborative nature of science. What could have benefited the experience further was more direct and sustained interactions with the project scientists beyond the discussion boards.

Interfaith Programs

Many interfaith organizations are devoted to mobilizing diverse religious communities toward action on scientific issues that intersect with issues of social justice. For example, Interfaith Power and Light (n.d.) coordinates affiliated interfaith organizations across the United States that are dedicated to environmental justice. These organizations provide resources to empower communities to take climate action through local projects. Although most of these actions involve in-person efforts, for some people, including but not limited to the elderly and infirm, online participation might be more appropriate. This was especially true during the pandemic, when Zooniverse leadership received expressions of gratitude from individuals around the world seeking to engage in meaningful activities from the safety of their homes.

In April 2021, the Engaging leader cohosted a webinar with Chicago-based environmental organizations Faith in Place and the Chicago Muslims Green Team to demonstrate how individuals could take climate action during the pandemic and beyond by participating in one or more of the many environmental research projects available on Zooniverse, including the local Chicago Wildlife Watch (faithinplace 2021). On many occasions, Zooniverse research teams have coordinated large events involving challenges to participants to achieve a certain number of classifications on specific projects. Future efforts could specifically target interfaith organizations dedicated to proactive climate action. Such an event, if advertised through prominent media outlets, would be a powerful demonstration of cooperation across diverse faith traditions and would stand in stark contrast to the pervasive culture wars and messages of polarization.

Youth and Family Programs

Engaging has produced several models for integrating Zooniverse projects into youth and family programs of faith communities. A Lutheran pastor in Texas with a strong science background had his confirmation class vote on a Zooniverse project on which they would all work. The class collectively chose Penguin Watch, a popular environmental science project (Arteta, Lempitsky, and Zisserman 2016; Jones et al. 2018, 2019; Jones et al. 2020). Since not all students would have chosen this project, the degree of engagement varied considerably, and the pastor decided that in the future, students would have individual choices among projects and be encouraged to make greater use of the discussion boards to interact with team scientists.

In general, pastors and youth leaders will not have scientific training, nor should this be an expectation. Most will need to work closely with a scientist to implement Zooniverse effectively. In some cases, scientists might be pulled from local congregations, similar to the models produced by the Scientists in Congregations initiative (Scientists in Congregations, n.d.). Scientists could also be recruited remotely from Zooniverse project teams to work directly with religious leaders. A good, albeit one-time, example took place in February 2021, when Engaging’s leader worked remotely with a youth leader to colead a session themed around “God and Physics” with middle- and high-school youth groups at a Presbyterian church in California. The scientist introduced students to Zooniverse and led them through a tutorial on classifying galaxies in Galaxy Zoo, highlighting the potential for students to discover new objects or new types of galaxies, while the youth leader encouraged students to reflect on how the vastness of the universe in time and space might expand and deepen the way they thought about God.

Zooniverse also provides an excellent platform for families to learn together. Hood Theological Seminary and the organization Families and Communities Together have co-organized minority-serving intergenerational summer science camps (Hood Theological Seminary, n.d.). In 2020 and 2021, Engaging’s leader conducted online sessions with Zooniverse on Zoom, highlighting projects that were related to camp themes. The 2020 science theme was space, which facilitated discussion of nascent star clusters that were discovered by volunteers working on the Milky Way Project (Kerton et al. 2015; Wolf-Chase and Kerton 2015; Wolf-Chase et al. 2021). In keeping with the 2021 focus on ecology and the climate, the Zooniverse project Fossil Atmospheres was used to demonstrate how people around the world are helping to track how Earth’s atmosphere has changed over time (Soul et al. 2018).

Online Surveys

Because the faith communities that participated in this initiative were so diverse (seminaries, youth groups, interfaith audiences), surveys were distributed using convenience sampling to different audiences participating in four specific events: attendees of a virtual DoSER Science for Seminaries retreat during the summer of 2020; middle- and high-school youth groups at a Presbyterian church in February 2021; attendees of a virtual international multicultural workshop in March 2021; and attendees of a virtual interfaith environmental webinar in April 2021. As a consequence, most of the feedback provided by the surveys came from one-time events rather than long-term programs. To gather more data from individuals who might not actually participate in a citizen-science project after completing a survey, the surveys were also distributed through the e-newsletter of the Clergy Letter Project (n.d.b.). The Clergy Letter Project e-newsletter is distributed to between 8,000 and 10,000 religious leaders on a monthly basis. Beginning in February 2021, it was also possible to access the surveys through the initiative’s website (American Association for the Advancement of Science Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion 2021).

The rate of survey return was unfortunately low. While 185 people returned the pre-participation survey, only twenty-seven returned the post-participation survey, with an overlap of eighteen people who completed both surveys. The returnee demographic was dominated by white (86%), male (67%), highly educated (87% masters or doctorate), older adults (74% over 50 years of age), who self-identified across diverse faith traditions. The most interesting results came from the open-ended responses, which revealed several common themes. Open-ended questions addressed the inclination of respondents to participate in either online or in-person citizen science; confidence in science and scientists; and whether respondents viewed science to be in conflict with their religious beliefs. For the last, it should be noted that most of the Christian respondents came from mainline Protestant and Catholic traditions and their responses do not necessarily reflect the views of individuals who identify as evangelical Christians.

On the whole, respondents showed no strong preference between participating in online versus in-person citizen science. For each of these types of project, roughly 33% of people who submitted pre-participation surveys were “in between” as to whether they would be inclined to participate, with roughly 33% “likely” or “very likely” to participate and 33% “unlikely” or “very unlikely” to participate. In contrast, 74% of respondents who participated in Zooniverse and returned a post-participation survey were “likely” or “very likely” to participate again. Post-participation respondents were also somewhat more favorably inclined to try an in-person citizen-science project than pre-participation respondents. The most common reason given for not being inclined to participate was time—given the large number of responses from clergy, this may be motivated by reluctance to take on an activity completely outside of one’s vocational training.

While most respondents viewed science itself favorably, confidence in actual scientists was tempered by the fallibility and motivations of humans in general. Respondents who knew scientists personally were inclined to view scientists favorably in general, underscoring the importance of having interactive experiences with actual scientists. Some responses indicated a higher level of trust in scientists employed in independent or academic research, as opposed to those employed by corporations or industries that were seen as potentially motivated by economic rather than humanitarian interests.

The vast majority of respondents (90%) did not see conflict between science and their personal religious views, although many of the extended responses came from religious leaders whose theological views may not reflect the views of their typical congregants. While some viewed science and religion as complementary, others felt that science can inform, challenge, deepen, or modify religious understandings. Still others felt that science and religion could inform each other. Most of the conflict responses were not about science per se but reflected ethical concerns about some applications of science.

Decades ago, Templeton Prize winner Ian Barbour used four terms—Conflict, Independence, Dialogue, and Integration—to describe ways in which science and religion are observed to interact (e.g., Barbour 2000, 2–4). More recently, Lutheran theologian Ted Peters (2019, 26) reported that Berkeley’s Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences adopted the phrase creative mutual interaction (CMI) when formulating the editorial policy of the journal Theology and Science in order to promote two-way conversations between science and theology. Peters applies CMI particularly in the context of speculations about the religious and ethical stances of hypothetical extraterrestrial intelligent life, where he suggests that theology can help point out hidden ideologies in extra-scientific claims (e.g., Peters 2019, 25–43). The “complementary” views of survey respondents roughly align with Barbour’s “independence” or “dialogue” categories and the “inform” and “modify” responses with Barbour’s “integration” category (Barbour 2000, 2–4); CMI provides a good description of the views of respondents who felt science and religion could inform each other.

Focus Groups and Informal Conversations

Throughout the duration of Engaging, the initiative’s leader had informal conversations with prospective citizen-science participants. Additionally, the leader conducted two focus groups during the summer of 2021 to gain additional information from people who had participated in at least one Zooniverse project. The focus groups consisted of a retired Lutheran pastor who used Zooniverse as an individual and helped market the platform among science and religion organizations; a professor at a minority-serving seminary who integrated several Zooniverse projects into her seminary classes and intergenerational summer camps in North Carolina; a lay member of a Muslim community in Chicago who is actively involved in marketing citizen science among Muslims; and the pastor of a 600-member Lutheran congregation in a small Texas city who used Zooniverse with his confirmation class.

One of the primary points to emerge from the focus groups and informal conversations was the importance of the continued involvement of scientists in implementing citizen-science projects. While discussion boards are helpful, there is no substitute for personal, real-time interactions between scientists and participants. This is especially important to help new participants build confidence in their abilities to contribute meaningfully and to help them learn and stay engaged. Some participants also may need more assistance navigating online tools for annotations and classifications.

One focus group participant suggested the formation of “affinity groups” across different churches and community organizations, wherein people from diverse backgrounds would participate in projects of common interest. Another focus group member felt that organizing a challenge with some sort of reward for reaching a specified level of participation could motivate engagement. For example, such rewards might come from community partners donating gift cards or providing other incentives for volunteers.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to marketing participatory research to religious communities or the kinds of projects that may be of interest. Although the Muslim focus group participant indicated that connecting science to religious values expressed in the Qur’ān, and highlighting doing science as a way of connecting with God, was important to Muslims, focus group members felt that on the whole, local conditions, age, and other factors not directly related to religious concerns play large roles in motivating people to participate in citizen science. Scientists need to work closely with local leaders to identify the best fits for a given community. Two-way communication is extremely important, and diversity is critical. Participants need to see scientists that remind them of themselves.

Science-Apprehensive and Underrepresented Audiences

The level of trust in science and scientists is affected by the representation of one’s own culture within a given scientific community (Odekunle 2020; Thorp 2020). This is true when it comes to gender, culture, ethnicity, and other factors such as religion. Although Engaging facilitated many new connections with diverse faith communities and provided models for integrating online participatory research into assorted programs, further efforts are required to make significant inroads into populations underrepresented in science. This includes ethnic minorities as well as religious communities that may be more apprehensive about science in general. Many religious communities are happy to work with scientists who may not share their own religious views; however, informal conversations with members of organizations of evangelical Christians in science, including the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) and BioLogos, indicate this is often not the case when it comes to interacting with more conservative evangelical Christians. These organizations could play important roles in encouraging evangelical Christians to participate in science.

Although Engaging’s leader had several conversations with representatives of the ASA, BioLogos, the Emerging Scholars Network (a network within InterVarsity’s Graduate and Faculty Ministry), and homeschool networks, the relatively short duration of the funding period, and the fact that all communications were necessarily remote during the pandemic, made relationship building and creating new programs with the help of these organizations unfeasible. However, ASA representatives expressed interest in future possibilities, including a Zooniverse training workshop for ASA chapter members who could subsequently connect with local leaders of evangelical congregations to discuss projects of interest and programming possibilities.

Just as evangelical Christians in science can facilitate building relationships with many Christian communities, minority scientists who belong to religious communities have a critical role to play in building bridges of trust to enhance ethnic and religious diversity in science. Research indicates that scientists need to incorporate discussions about religion to help address race and gender disparities in science, as perceptions of science as anti-faith disproportionately exclude minorities and women (e.g., Bolger and Ecklund 2022; Barnes and Brownell 2018; Ecklund et al. 2019). Religious leaders who serve minority populations might help identify scientists within their communities who could serve as role models for churched youth, and a proactive outreach effort by scientists, such as leaders of Zooniverse project teams, to historically Black colleges and universities, educational institutions that serve Indigenous populations, community colleges, etc., would help to build trust and engage audiences that remain severely underrepresented in science.

Creating Long-Term Partnerships

Building relationships and trust between scientists and faith communities takes time, effort, and resources. Although participatory science offers a natural way to build relationships while at the same time furthering research in many areas, sustainable partnerships require ongoing financial support, and many potential community partners do not have access to the grant-managing institutions that are typically eligible for funding from federal agencies and foundations. One recent effort to engage people from faith communities in participatory science is a partnership between SciStarter and the North Carolina Council of Churches (North Carolina Council of Churches 2024). However, it is likely that engaging many underrepresented audiences will require a more proactive effort, and it is not clear how smaller or poorer communities that do not have access to many resources can “prime the pump.” Funding agencies should consider ways to broaden the categories of organizations that can apply for grants, particularly seed funding that could help small communities establish new programs.

One intent of the Engaging initiative that was never realized was the co-creation of new research projects with faith communities using Zooniverse’s project-builder tool. In principle, any digitized dataset can be turned into a crowd-sourced research project, the scale of which would depend upon the size of the dataset and the requirements of the project. The dataset might be drawn from a library, museum, historic records of a faith community, etc., to create a project that would address specific research questions of interest to the community or communities involved. Such an effort could directly involve the faith community in the creation of a research project and provide tangible benefits to the community along with the opportunity to broaden their understanding of, and engagement with, science. A few examples of excellent projects that demonstrate some of these possibilities include Print Dynamic Networks (Zooniverse, n.d.c), Scribes of the Cairo Geniza (Zooniverse, n.d.d), and Maria Edgeworth Letters (Zooniverse, n.d.b).

A key factor in efforts such as these is increasing the involvement of scientists. There are many possible venues for recruiting scientists to work with religious communities in an ongoing fashion. In addition to encouraging scientists leading projects on Zooniverse to connect with these communities, scientists could be recruited from within religious communities themselves as well as through networks such as the scientific consultants to the Clergy Letter Project (n.d.c.), professional scientific societies such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or organizations devoted to societal wellbeing and respectful dialogue at the intersections of religion and science, such as the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science.

While there are certainly many organizations that could help create partnerships between scientists and religious leaders/communities, and an overwhelming number of potentially useful resources, the sheer wealth of information poses a particularly large challenge for identifying appropriate potential partners. What is desperately needed is the creation and maintenance of a searchable database that could be used by faith leaders and scientists alike to connect through commonalities, needs, interests, location, etc. Such a database could facilitate the building of relationships, the development of new research projects, and the creation of partnerships that could transform how communities and individuals understand the relationship between science and religion.