Citizen science seems to have a natural alignment with environmental and science education, but incorporating citizen science projects into education practices is still a challenge for educators from different education contexts. Based on participant observation and interview data, this paper describes the strategies educators identified for implementing an environmental citizen science project in different education contexts (i.e., classroom teaching, aquarium exhibits, and summer camp) and discusses the practical concerns influencing independent implementation by educators. The results revealed different implementation strategies that are shaped by four categories of constraints: 1) organizational and institutional policies, 2) educators’ time and material resources, 3) learners’ needs and abilities, and 4) aspects of citizen science project design that constitute a higher barrier to entry for educators managing student contributions. We developed a simple two-dimensional model to demonstrate the types of adaptations that educators made to citizen science projects and discussed the potential role of persuasive technologies to address some of the gaps and better facilitate educator and learner participation.

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