A Systematic Review of Participatory Science Approaches in K–12 Ecological Monitoring

Participatory science has emerged as a vital educational approach for engaging K–12 learners in authentic scientific inquiry while generating data for ecological monitoring. This systematic review synthesizes 72 empirical studies published between 2006 and 2025 that involved K–12 students in ecological monitoring projects. Guided by Cultural–Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), we analyzed six core components—subject, object, tools, rules, community, and division of labor—to identify structural patterns and to read the reported implementation strategies and constraints as alignments and misalignments among these components. The results indicate that most projects involved upper secondary students and frequently utilized digital platforms such as iNaturalist and GLOBE Observer, with a significant proportion originating from Europe and North America. While nearly all projects specified a scientific aim, many left the educational aim implicit, and reported constraints revealed potential contradictions in teacher labor, school rules, tools, data quality, and educational assessment. Based on these findings, we propose a CHAT‐based design framework encompassing six phases, from problem identification to dissemination. By moving from identifying structural components to analyzing their interactions, this review offers researchers, educators, and policymakers a relational basis for designing K–12 participatory science, while highlighting persistent geographic and evaluative gaps for future work.