2️⃣Reflect

How can we best reflect on our community-led action?

Reflection is cultural as well as technical. Consider holding team debriefs, gathering testimonials, journaling your journey, or using storytelling as a collective sense-making tool. Ask yourselves what surprised you, what challenged you, and what inspired you. Make space for honest conversations and collective learning.

Why is it relevant?

Because reflection fuels growth and a healthy environment for collaboration. It helps us connect action to meaning, see unintended outcomes, and carry wisdom into future collective efforts. It is also part of care, for ourselves, our communities, and the ecosystems we engage with.

How can this be done?

Use simple formats such as team reflections, community feedback circles, or visual storytelling. Revisit your Theory of Change and ask if your assumptions held true. Celebrate things you have achieved, even small ones, and acknowledge what didn’t go as planned. That’s where learning starts.

Starfish model

The Starfish model reflection tool is a visual framework used to facilitate reflective discussions and gather feedback on a specific project, event or action. It encourages participants to provide insights based on their experiences and perspectives, focusing on five key aspects represented by different parts of the starfish metaphor: Start, Stop, Continue, More of, and Less of.

The Starfish Model - Visual Thinkery

Feedback collection of participants

Feedback collection from participants can take various forms dependent on the depth of the collected feedback desired. Feedback can be collected online, through email, or in-person, and are most effective during or directly after an action. Examples of formal collection frameworks are surveys and questionnaires that structure the data collection and information from participants in a systematic manner. Informal and/interactive feedback collection could take the shape of e.g. a bullseye feedback, or a feedback wall on which sticky notes or comment cards are collected on which participants can share their experience and feedback about the action.

Survicate, Surveymonkey, Mentimeter

Spark, Solve, Sustain

Spark, Solve and Sustain is a framework to help you evaluate a process with a group of participants by transforming insights into concrete actions points. It helps groups or individuals to reflect and learn from mistakes and successes that were encountered. The action points and insights can then be directly integrated into the planning of the next citizen-led action of the CO.

Spark, Solve, Sustain - Butterflyworks

Examples?

• A group photo exhibition showing before-and-after environmental changes with personal stories from participants.

• A shared digital diary or Miro board where team members post reflections anonymously.

• An open community forum to share results, receive feedback, and discuss future ideas.

Useful resources

• https://eu-citizen.science/projects and https://citimeasure.eu/comparability-tool/ This two platforms provide several examples and inspiration through a catalogue of different citizen science projects. Engaging in peer exchanges within Citizen Observatories enables initiatives to share experiences, challenges, and best practices with other organisations or individuals working in similar fields.