I have not done any of the projects yet.  It is helpful reading about the projects from the other participants.  I anticipate either having students participate in bird watching and recording frequency of activity as it relates to various bird seeds available.

- What citizen-science project did you do? Previously, I did Frog Watch. This project includes going out to areas with frogs and toads, listening for calls, and keeping track of numbers. - What challenges, if any, did you experience? Sometimes, you could show up to a location and find nothing! - What learning outcomes might you expect from having your students participate in this project? Even you set up a project just right, you may have unexpected outcomes. This project also helps students get better at scientific observation and collecting data.

I haven't worked with a citizen science activity with my students but I have plans to do so once school starts again next month. I am planning to work on Project Feeder Watch with my students. I anticipate we may have challenges with motivation with a few of my students and that we may run into logistical issues with getting outside in the winter but I don't think either of these challenges will be prohibitive. Expected learning outcomes from this project are that the students will gain a greater appreciation of the birds in our area, that their knowledge of birds in our area will grow, and that they will hone their observation and inferencing skills. I also expect their idea of what a scientist looks like and how they can contribute to science will change to include themselves in the picture.

What citizen-science project did you do? We started collecting monarch butterfly caterpillars and eggs to raise and release. There are a few sites that take this information so we have a few students using different ones. What challenges, if any, did you experience? So far our only challenge has been how to get the most kids invested. Even though we have the same students all summer, each day we have different students so it's been a challenge to allow them all the same 'first experience' with collecting and observing as we can only handle so many on sight. We have followed up each day on locations, status, size, stage, etc. but the most excited kids were the ones who made the initial discovery, not the ones who are following up on another students finding. What learning outcomes might you expect from having your students participate in this project? We hope the students will learn the basics of monarchs and their life stages. We hope they learn the important of milkweed in our area and will help protect the plants to directly help protect the species. We want them to learn the unique relationship that monarchs have created with milkweed and we want them to just enjoy and have fun with nature!

I am working on Project Squirrel.  It is challenging right now to spend a great deal of time outside, as the temperature and humidity is extremely high.  The mosquitoes are also out in high numbers, so it is very challenging to be outside for long.  I expect that students would learn to observe, record data, take photographs, keep track of dates and times, create graphs, observe patterns, learn different kinds of squirrels such as the grey squirrel versus the fox squirrel, and ask questions about trends in squirrel  populations.