I have tried out Seek, I have used iNaturalist before and love it, but thought that since you need to have an account for it that I would try Seek as students would not be required to create an account. Seek is very similar and will answer students' questions about "What is that?" but it also gives them just enough details to help encourage further questions and reference readings. I believe with our county students doing joint remote and in-classroom learning this year that this would be greatly beneficial to students. However, I know that with us having many impoverished students that internet access would be difficult for some students. A hopeful learning outcome is that not only students would be involved and teachers but parents would also become involved as well as any siblings.

I tried Ebird for this discussion. I always find that when using Ebird, I try to commit my time and energy to locating every species - but sometimes I am challenged by not observing a species even if it was on another's checklist that very same day. I always try to remind myself though that this is a good thing, a mini "failure" that can improve data or make it more real for scientists. Perhaps it's the time of day that I am birding, or the temperature, or the presence of a predator species in the area - and that's why I didn't observe the meadowlark. I would expect students to learn similarly to the soil experiments that an absence in data doesn't mean it's not valuable.

I have been collecting data for the Great Sunflower Project (greatsunflower.org). The project asks that you monitor a flowering plant for at least 5 minutes, and then record the number and type of pollinators you see during that time period. The information can be directly input through the organizations' website or you can use a paper data collection sheet, and write the information down for later input. Challenges have included identifying plants and bees. The project has aids to help with identification, and it isn't necessary to indicate the specific bee or hummingbird species. Same is true for the plants, but if I were using this with a class it might be nice to be familiar with the plants the class would be observing. The outcomes will probably cause students to ask questions about the different bees or butterflies they might be observing. Why are some plants more attractive to the pollinators than others, and possibly many other questions. I would hope students would become more interested in the different type of pollinators, and learn more about them as living organisms. They might want to extend the observations to a gardening project to help attract more to their school, camp, etc. Students may even want to consider the food that needs pollination. Things I like about the project: data sheets are provided for later data entry, especially important if students can't or don't have a Great Sunflower Project account or access to computers and Internet.  The website also has a number of interdisciplinary educational resources, and lots of related children's book titles. I could also see combining this project with Seek or iNaturalist to expand into plant and animal identification.

I have tried out Seek this week and enjoyed it. I think that students would also enjoy being able to identify things. One of the main questions I get while in the field is "what is that?!" However, many times phones are not allowed on field trips and if they are, they can become a problem. We also try to use the time to get away from screens completely, so I do not believe apps are something we could implement into our field studies.   However, we try to send back take-home activities with the students after their field trip with us is complete. We use the activities to try and engage the parents with what the students learned and bring environmental education/stewardship into the home. I could add the download of Seek to a take-home activity and turn it into a collaboration between students and their parents: how many badges can you get before your next field study? We are always looking for ways to get parents more involved and keep a student's environmental exploration going even after they go back home.

I have participated and led NestWatch with volunteers in a former position.  This spring I volunteered as a NestWatch monitor for a local park district.  NestWatch is a CS project that tracks nesting birds and offers numerous educational resources and protocol to support volunteers doing this CS work.   NestWatch also offers an online data base for data collection. As a volunteer, I checked six nest boxes at a local park at least weekly or more often if a nest was started in the boxes. .  This experience allowed me to get outdoors and focus on something other than the pandemic which was a welcome distraction.  It was nice to spend time doing this work.  Due to past experience leading this activity with volunteers professionally, I had the knowledge of the birds using the nest boxes which may the biggest challenge to this project. Monitoring involved nest boxes that are suitable for Eastern Bluebirds, Tree Swallows and House Wrens primarily.  Nest boxes narrow the scope of what students need to learn.  NestWatch provides an opportunity to witness the development of these birds and understand their life cycles.  Student interests and inquiry can lead them to investigate more about the birds they are monitoring.   The challenge of this project is the time commitment since you follow the nesting cycles of birds takes weeks to months.   Eastern Bluebirds have more than one brood per season. In addition, there is a cost of building the boxes and placing them in the appropriate habitat that is nearby and accessible.  This could be done on a schoolyard natural area and involve other classes like shop or woodworking..  The outcomes for the students are multiple.  Students gain observational and analytic skills through the activity.  They also are disciplined to follow scientific protocols to protect birds and record quality data.   They are given an intimately window into how fragile yet resilient birds are by watching parent birds care and nurture their eggs nestlings.  The experience is memorable and remarkable.  It is something to watch.

I did the Project Feeder Watch citizen science project for a 2 day observation cycle of the live bird feeder cam in the Cornell Lab Sapsucker Woods.  I have attached the tally sheet. It was very exciting to watch the various birds that are visiting this bird feeder. I am hoping to observe it more on my own. One challenge which I over came was the fact that I was not familiar with a few of the bird species. At first I confused the Grackle with the Crow. So I really learned about differentiating the species and paying careful attention to the sizes, colors, and markings on birds that look similar. A small challenge I experienced was actually counting the birds while there is so much movement around the bird feeder. I might expect students to learn the importance of using your sense of sight to observe. I might also expect students to learn how to carefully observe and describe things in nature by color, size, markings, patterns, and other traits to compare and contrast. In addition I might expect students to see the value of such an activity and understand how their participation in it serves a greater goal beyond the classroom.  

I have been using Seek by iNaturalist since last week's introductory meeting and am really enjoying it. I like how it will bring up suggestions for where you are and what else to look for. So far, I have no complaints about its ease of use. I can see how the various badges that are acquired could help to motivate students to keep looking. It helps to introduce Kingdom Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus & Species to budding naturalists. I am a bit old fashioned and love a really good guide book, but I feel like the app and a guide book could compliment each other, with the photo being used for identification and the guide book helping to supplement information about the finding. I do think that its use is limited in lower income schools, as you need access to the app and a phone/camera.

• I tried eBirds
• Challenges: Identification, quality of binoculars.
• Learning outcomes: this will help my students pay more attention to their environment, learning to identify birds will definitely helps them create the habit of careful observations, and watching birds will help stimulate questions that can be further explored.
• Other notes: Even though I have difficulties with bird identification, I do have concerns about bird ID apps, as I feel that I don't learn as much with ID apps in generals. My other concerns (for other projects as well) is the need for mobile phones (to take pictures, submit data, take location). My students might not have access to smartphones, and there might be concerns with privacy. I found the setup for Globe at Night web submission simple and accessible. It's nice to find some projects that accept data from anywhere in the world, but a lot of the ones I'm interested in (plants, phenology, weather, insects...) are specific to North America. I'd appreciate if anyone has suggestions about doing CS outside of North America.

I'm a huge iNaturalist fan so for the sake of time, I used this for my discussion My challenge with iNaturalist is grabbing a good photo. Using my expeience, a few photos are necessary for ID, and even more photos for plant ID. For this reason, I think it's important to go over how to take a good photo and what angles/shots you need in order to get a research grade ID. There is so much to learn! I would like to use this project with a student group to track the movements of invasive species. This would be a perfect tie in with Globe Observer so students could investigate how weather impacts almost everything, including the movement north by invasive lizards in Florida. With this, I think apps that are easy to use, like iNat, show students that observation and inquiry can happen ANYWHERE. Beyond adding observations, I'd like to teach students how to interpret citizen science data for their own investigations.

I chose to do eBird because I already submit data 1-2 times a week. I am rather addicted to eBird and love that it is quick and simple to log data. I even use the app on my short walks to the mailbox.  I don't have any challenges with this project,  other than its 115 degrees and the birds are not super active mid day. I have taught students as young as 5 yrs old how to use eBird. There are so many great tutorials on using this program and the data that is collected is used by many organizations around the world. I have heard people question the protocols of eBird and have heard several people say that eBird has no checks and balances, which is so far from the truth. I can tell you that eBird has reviewers all over the world,  each state in the USA has several and these folks are volunteers who set up parameters, monitor the data, email eBirders for clarification, etc. I have actually not seen many other citizen science programs that put so much effort into making sure the data is accurate. They also allow you to enter historical data, before their inception. I have noticed people in the other posts mentioning that idying birds was difficult. I highly recommend the Merlin and Audubon apps. Again I have taught 5 yr olds how to use Merlin. Also if you know you saw a hummingbird but didn't know the exact type you can just enter the data as hummingbird sp.? Having data even if its just a generic species is still helpful. Also eBird populates your bird list based on your geographical area and also what others have seen. So for example if you live in the desert you won't see seagull on your list, or it will be marked as rare, so you know it is probably not that bird. You can also you can record and upload bird calls now on eBird. There are so many learning outcomes with eBird....for example analyzing migratory birds and when they are arriving and leaving AZ, abundance of bird species in the area you are exploring, determining if providing birdseed, nectar or water attracts more birds or different bird species, planning a vacation around seeing a lifelist bird, seeing if a bird species has historically always been in your state, seeing if the arrival and departure times of a migratory bird have changed over the last 30 yrs (climate change related) etc.

Just a note to Cornell Lab course organizers - all but 1 of the listed CitSci projects in Lesson 1 are geared primarily for North American audiences.  Unfortunately some of the GLOBE projects don't recognize my location (Hong Kong) either, so that wasn't all that helpful.  It would be great to add truly global projects in the list as well to cater to a wide range of people who would be keen to learn from the Cornell Lab.

• I used iNaturalist, as I've been using it for years personally and with students.
• Very few issues as it is a very streamlined app and the smartphone and web-based versions are very user-friendly for all ages.
• Learning outcomes: building curiosity about how much nature actually exists around them, their school, their home, feeling connected to a community of like-minded nature-curious people and with experts, which drives motivation to contribute; developing their own questions - some that could be answered by investigating the database within iNaturalist, beginning to recognize that observations wasn't just a 'thing that happens at school', but was a skill that extended beyond school walls, data analysis allows for deeper questions and follow-up action to be considered: i.e. conservation status and local action for certain species, opportunities for service learning with particular NGOs working on similar issues, etc.

I participated in a Painted Lady Butterfly CSP through the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles.  It was pretty easy and straight forward, so I didn't experience too many challenges.  They were definitely invested in it because it was a real, scientific study. I've also participated in the Great Christmas Bird count with my students.  This was made easier by joining up with an Audubon count at a local nature center.  I was nervous about us being able to accurately identify birds and so it was nice doing it with experts. This February I was gearing my class up to try the Backyard Bird Count, but decided to just collect the data for in-class use.  I found that students were pretty good at identifying local birds at this point, but they became competitive and made up wild stories about different birds they saw. With younger kids I'm worried about collecting accurate data.  Next year, I will spend more time on the importance of accuracy and will create a class account with eBird.

iNaturalist is a joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and National Geographic Society.  iNaturalist can help you identify almost anything you can find in nature. But as I researched further within the site and read the teachers guide, I think the SEEK part of the app would be more beneficial for beginners using this application.   It is an easy to use app, and if limited on devices youth could take pictures on 1 or two devices and later share them to the app via computer.  I know when teaching having devices and connectivity is always an issue.  It includes birds, plants, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects etc. It is part social media, part science tool. Users submit observations to a community of scientists and naturalists who can assist with identification. iNaturalist itself will generate accurate suggestions of your observations which can then be verified by the community. You can include as little or as much information as you have making it very user friendly. If all you know is that you are seeing a plant that is what you can say. If you know the plant is a tree you can include that and if you know the tree is an evergreen you can include that as well. iNaturalist is designed to meet users where they are and builds a sense of community sharing.  Introducing kids to this application would allow them to continue learning on their own time, allowing them to continue to ask questions because they have a tool to help them find answers.  It also is perfect for all grade levels, teaching youth k-12 can be difficult because you are always thinking of ways to meet all your students’ needs, this tool is so easy that anyone can use it! Things to remember: Teachers working with younger kids need to keep in mind that the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 means we can't allow people under the age of 13 in the United States to create accounts without parental approval. You can have all youth put in the same location if you are collecting data around a certain area and that will help users sort other’s projects.

I participated in  the Greater NC Spring Biothon 2020. The project was simply to take pictures of biomass in and around the area where I live.  There were 2,651 observations recorded and 1007 species identified between 26 people. The data showed exactly which species we were  seeing most and least of ( Eastern Grey squirrel was spotted the most). It was very easy to take part in and I am sure that even my youngest Kindergarten students can participate.  I spent  a month taking hikes and actively searching for species wherever I went. I  even roped in the entire family and everyone was always on the lookout for plants, insects and creatures of any kind. I think it was a good way to start working on observations and I liked the fact that other participants were able to help me identify some of my unknown species. I think the inaturalist platform is a good starting point before advancing to another citizen science project. I think it can help foster awareness, observations and inquiry. I like how you can set up a challenge and it can be customized for my class / school.

The Citizen-Science project I chose to participate in was Project FeederWatch.  To begin, I printed out the smaller version of the Common Feeder Birds poster and Tally Sheet.  I observed and recorded Day 1, morning and Day 1, afternoon numbers.  Being new to bird watching one of the challenges I faced was identifying the birds.  The common birds in my area were easily identified such as Northern Cardinal, Blue Jay and Black-capped Chickadee, but there was a bird I could not easily identify.  I plan to reach out to my administration and ask for support to formally join Project FeederWatch for our school.  By participating in this project, I would like my students to not only develop their inquiry and observation skills, but also ignite their love of nature and caring for our planet, Earth.

The citizen science project I participated in was eBird. One challenge I found while participating was identifying the species. I am new to birding and found that I was continously checking that my observations matched up with the characteristics of the bird species I identified. This had me take my time to make careful observations and then go back and check again. I did set up a camera to help me go back and use as a resource in case the bird left before I was able to identify it. I would expect my students to improve their observation skills by participating in this project. Students will have to compare key features of the bird with that of different species and check the traits multiple times. Students will also have to engage in discussion with their group to come to a consensus about the species. This will include students using evidence to support their claim of the species they observed.

- eBird - I experienced a challenge to identify birds - Discussion: inquiry questions such as : I wonder where the birds are going, I wonder how far they have travelled. This could lead to a variety of cross-curricular projects and studies.

For this activity I searched the SciStarter Project Finder and chose to do a citizen science project called Project Squirrel.  This activity had me select a date and specific time of day to observe the squirrels from an area of my choice.  I specified the type and of number of squirrels I found, what type of trees were surrounding the area, and answered some other questions to provide this site with more detailed information about my surroundings.  I did not encounter any challenges with this citizen science project. If my students were to participate in this project I could see this turning into something we could do at school and something that they could do at home with their families.  The variables involved would make for some interesting discussion. (Were any of the trees around the observation site nut bearing?  Are there bird feeders in the area?  Are dogs, cats, coyotes, or other wild animals around this area that might affect the number of squirrels you see?)  Making observations throughout the different seasons would be interesting to compare as well.  In my own experience we see many more squirrels in the fall when our oak tree drops acorns.  This was a citizen science project had clear directions and would be something my first graders would love to participate in.  This would also connect well to our Animal Survival unit.

I am not reporting to any of the citizen science projects that were discussed in Lesson 1.  I would come closest to participating in FeederWatch.   There is a feeder in our yard that I watch often to see the different species of birds that are coming to the feeder.  I also spend time watching interactions between the birds at the feeder.  I was recently introduced to eBird and am interested in taking part in eBird.  Participating in either of these projects would give students an opportunity to connect more to their natural surroundings.

I am a contributor to eBird. One challenge I face is identifying birds accurately, especially when it is a bird I can only see briefly or from a distance, or one I've never seen before. Since I'm new to birding, another challenge is contributing more "rare" birds and being fully certain when you've identified a bird -- for example, we were pretty sure we saw a black-chinned hummingbird in a tree, but didn't feel completely positive about it. I expect that students who participate in this project would strengthen their observational skills.

I participate annually in the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. As far as challenges, weather was an issue, and can be in this region that time of year. Learning outcomes would be bird id, habitat preferences, song id, migratory birds?- we could decide how best to find answers, whether via references (field guides), looking at existing data (past bird count info), observing (what birds are where) and could try experimentation (what birds will respond to noise to call them in)

I did a one time observation for Budburst.com. I sent in pictures and point in life cycle of a dandelion for both flowers and fruit. I had difficulty getting the pictures uploaded and with my internet connection. A problem that I anticipate my students might have is figuring out how to match a common plant name with a scientific name. They will also need to find out latitude and longitude of their location. It would help younger students to explicitly teach these tasks. I imagine that it would help children to be more observant of common elements in their world once they understand why it is important to pay attention.

I participated in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology eBird Citizen Science Project (using Merlin Bird ID). I really liked using this app because you don't have to go far to spot different birds (since I am unable to go far due to covid-19 lockdowns this was a positive) and can just record sightings from your backyard. I didn't have a particular challenge, but it would be nice to do this project in a more natural setting without the hustle of the city cars. Students will learn a lot about different bird species, and will also learn more specifically about the birds that live near the school and in their neighbourhood. I think that students will also learn about their ability to contribute to science and will help them position themselves as scientists.

I participated in Nature's Notebook Citizen Science Project. I have to admit that there were no challenges to my participation!  The data sheets have embedded ? icon to help with definitions such as "Breaking leaf buds" or "increasing leaf size", etc.  It was easy to use from my iPad and data is a simple checklist that is uploaded quickly.  Students will learn about phenology and how to observe and connect more closely with the natural world. It will help them to see themselves as scientists contributing to meaningful research on climate change and the effects of natural disaster around the country. I think students will easily be able to form their own questions related to their observations and continue learning.

1. I did the Project FeederWatch. 2. Bird ID...wow, I thought I need my birds fairly well but I had to look a couple of them. I think it was because they were females and did have very obvious markings. I saw doves, robins, house wrens (I think), red-winged blackbirds, and cardinals. 3. I think this would be an easy project to participate in. I didn't formally login and record my data, but I could have my students easily sign up and do this while school is closed. I like the annual sign up too so it gives students a reason to keep doing it and possibly encourage them to keep doing it.