I take students out to a local wildlife refuge every Spring where we collect data for e-bird. Take students  water quality monitoring twice a year and collect the data and share with local agencies and tribes. I have used Project budburst in the past as well as working with a local nature center to do fish seines to collect data about forage fish populations in the area. And been involved in COASST a seabird stranding monitoring program and another marine debris/rope monitoring on ocean beaches program. Citizen science programs are so engaging for students, they are always so hands-on and can engage even reluctant science students. Citizen science projects are a great way to partner with local organizations and showcase local "green" jobs. Dive in!

Loon watch. Monarch tagging.  Cornell's Invasive Fish DNA. NYSDEC wave, backyard bird count,  Find something relevant in your area and get involved

I am very fortunate to work at public middle school with a lot of greenspace on our property. This past year, I did a Tree Journal with my kids. We visited the same stand of trees 10 times throughout the year (5 times in the fall, 5 times in the spring), conducted observations and answered questions relating to topics we were learning in class. While out there, I would use my personal Smartphone and iNaturalist account to record things my students observed. My school has a "Project" within iNaturalist that some other staff and I post to. My biggest hurdle is wanting the students be the ones to record the observations in iNaturalist. Not everyone has a SmartPhone. Even if they do, we have to be careful about recommending certain apps for personal download. I tried to have them take pictures and upload them to school-issued Chromebook to then load to iNaturalist through the website, but there we ran into privacy and security issues with that too. Seek by iNaturalist is also a great tool as well, but I struggle with how to use it in class when not everyone has a SmartPhone. I think I could incorporate some of the GLOBE programs into the tree journaling activity. I will have to look more into that and see if I can create a "class account" that they can record observations to. Another challenge I have is that I teach 5 classes each day, with over 100 students. I'll have to get creative with my planning, as I'm guessing a lot of these projects don't want 5 kids/groups reporting the same thing each day. I would love to see how I can use eBird with my students or start a FeederWatch program! I'm on the third floor, so that complicates being able to set a feeder up we can observe from inside.

I have had students collect soil samples as part of a citizen science project with the University of Oklahoma.  They were looking at different types of fungus found in local soil.  I found it interesting, but it took a long time for the University to post the online information about the soil samples once turned in, and they did  not provide much literature or support materials.  I would like to do more projects with students and citizen-science in the future, but I would like to have more time to prepare and have more support and support materials.

I have not participated in a citizen-science project with my students before.  I often take a moment to talk about the birds that we spot on campus as we walk to recess or lunch.  I teach at an elementary school.  I can expand that activity and record the number and species we see.  I could have a student enter it as a classroom eBird account.  It will be a project we could continue to work on throughout the school year.

I have had my students participate in the Project FeederWatch with much success!  The students built their own bird feeders based on their own designs (taking into account need for a perch, area of hold food, etc.).  It does require the ability to have time available for students to build and rebuild when they find something that does not work.  Their observations of birds using their feeders was also interesting and varied.  Some students had never taken the time to notice the birds in their own backyards!  We even designed and hung a feeder that we could watch from the classroom window (helpful for those whose parents did not want to actually hand the feeder).  The students soon realized that birds are not the only creature that visited the feeder - we also had a squirrel that regularly visited whom the students lovingly named chubs.  Due to a change in my classroom location (second floor now!) I am planning on incorporating the Project BudBurst in the coming year.

I've never really done a citizen science project with my learners. My husband is a secondary science teacher and he has worked with the GLOBE program before. I feel like I have a handle on how it will work, my only concerns are that my program is a one-day-a-week setup and I hope that we will be able to get a meaningful level of participation with so little contact time in a school year. In reflecting on the readings, I think citizen science will provide much needed relevance to our activities. It answers the question, "Why are we doing this?" from the get go and will no doubt engage my kiddos in our work even more than a "regular" activity. I have signed us up for the Feeder Watch program and I can't wait to get materials in hand and introduce this to my schools.

Our program has done citizen science projects but not nearly to the extent that we would like. We currently have quite a few milkweed plants growing around the Zoo and we talk about pollinators and backyard ecosystems often. I would love to put together more workshops based in the phenology world and I think milkweed blooms and monarch migration would be a great place to start. The readings give a really good starter package for getting an activity up and running. The citizen spotlight on ecology and phenology is somethign I plan to do in the future. Being able to utlize the ideas in investigating evidence each lesson provides a back bone to a new workshop curriculum. Being at a Zoo we are lucky that we can utlize our resources (animals) right here up close to conduct research on. We are also fortuante enough to be on a mountainside Zoo so we can work within the native ecosystem to participate in citizen science projects in Colorado. I plan to utlize the Monarch Tracking program with my students to see if we can investigate how much milkweed we have on grounds and if it's suitable for the migration that comes through the space.