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School-based citizen science (SBCS) can promote mathematics and science integration in elementary classrooms. The "Teacher Learning for Effective School-Based Citizen Science" (TL4CS) project created materials to support teachers' use of SBCS. One teacher shares her experiences using TL4CS materials designed for the weather-focused CoCoRaHS project to teach mathematics and science. 

Participatory science conducted in formal K–12 settings has many benefits, including the potential to engage teachers and students authentically in the scientific enterprise and to make learning more meaningful. Despite these benefits and others, school-based participatory science (SBPS) is not widespread. In this essay, we put forth a theory of SBPS that is emerging from a four-year study of efforts to integrate participatory science in elementary classrooms. The theory captures the complexity of SBPS and describes factors that shape the experience teachers and students have with participatory science. First, we describe the landscape of SBPS. Second, we describe our study and the data we have collected on teachers’ efforts to implement SBPS. Next, we describe the emerging theory and illustrate it with vignettes constructed from our data. Finally, we discuss recommendations for participatory science projects that wish to gain a foothold in K–12 classrooms and for research that can further test the theory of SBPS.