Linda
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This year I facilitated my land trust's first online Tug Hill Bird Quest, an activity similar to Project Feederwatch, with school, youth, family and adult observers in the Tug Hill Region (2,100 square mile rural area west of the Adirondacks). For the Bird Quest, each participating group or individual collects and reports bird observation data during one common observation week in May. The aim is to connect participants with nature through birds, and inspire them to get outside and learn more, particularly in the Tug Hill region. The land trust has conducted the event each year to limited extent with school classrooms on a voluntary basis for many years, but this was the first year we provided additional support materials online, such as slide shows and activity suggestions. Schools closing so abruptly put a major wrench in classroom participation, but we had a healthy interest from homeschool groups, families, and adults throughout the area. I was able to provide regular support via email to those with online access, thankfully. The most challenging aspect for me was making sure participants were engaged and able to feel competent identifying and counting birds. I began two weeks before observation week sending a daily Bird of the Day email, as well as posting it on our Facebook page, picturing and providing interesting facts about a specific bird likely to be seen at the feeder. Participants were directed to Cornell and Audubon web sites for more further information, and encouraged to contact me with observations, discoveries and questions. Encouragement to join Project Feederwatch was supplied upon completion of the observation week - many had expressed a wish to continue watching feeders through the year. I am hoping to incorporate regular live meetings (show your artwork, meet a naturalist, etc.) in the next round, as well as expand availability of curriculum options in classrooms or at home. It was great to see so many people so excited about birds, learning to identify the different species, and seeing things new to them that made them want to see more. I also hope to expand our participation into additional citizen science projects, such as water quality monitoring, invasive species monitoring and management, and climate change topics (Project BudBurst data over time?).
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I have a wide variety of informal teaching experience, primarily in outdoor classrooms, and have used primarily confirmation and structured inquiry in many activities. Right now I primarily arrange and lead outdoor experiences for families and adults, but I am looking forward to developing a more robust environmental education program for the land trust I work for. I can see how implementing the many levels of inquiry will help expand participants' understanding of the world around them. One example of a structured inquiry activity we used once at camp was a large-group game called Predator and Prey. Students would be asked to relate their own definitions of the terms predator and prey and asked about what animals in the forest might be predators or prey. We would ask the students to name common basic needs that both predator and prey animals share (food, water, shelter, space). We would then discuss how often we observed predators in the environment versus prey animals, and discuss the concept of the food web pyramid. We'd explain that we would divide the group up into three different groups - mice, snakes and hawks - and ask about how big each of the groups should be based on the food web pyramid. Once split into groups, students would use a map to navigate throughout camp in order to collect tokens representing their basic needs. If a predator group encountered a prey group, a tag game would take place and those caught by predators would then transition into the predator group, then groups were required to disperse during a 1 minute grace time. After a period of time, we all reassembled, discussed experiences, tallied final numbers of each species, determined how many of each species did or did not obtain their basic needs, etc. If allowed more time, I feel we could have extended this activity to use higher levels of inquiry, so that students could manipulate variables, test different predator/prey combinations and explore their own "I wonder" questions.
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I, too, have conducted this activity with students, primarily in nature camp settings. I like that it is so adaptable for the different levels of inquiry.
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Laurie - I love your progression of inquiry level with this subject. I work for an organization that provides birdfeeders and seed to classroom and homeschool students, libraries, youth groups, families, and adults who watch and record activity at their feeders during a particular period in spring. I can see us using many of your ideas to present a year-round inquiry based curriculum that expands on our observation event!
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@laurie Laurie - thanks for these wonderful suggestions for documentation! These will help so much with recall and follow up in my teaching.
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I, too, am an informal educator, Cara. You have chosen a great example of an activity that can be implemented using many different levels of inquiry. Often there is such a time crunch that it feels like allowing higher levels of inquiry is impossible, but really it is sometimes just a matter of restructuring the questions asked, or asking students to come up with those questions, that can make all the difference. Thanks for this!
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I appreciated that inquiry was described as a life long learning process, as well. I agree that it's a full-circle feedback loop that helps us navigate life's challenges, becoming able to recognize things that challenge our preconceptions or find things that we have had no occasion as yet to learn about, and pursuing answers.
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Your description of the process is just how I interpret inquiry, too.
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Inquiry is a process of evaluation that allows a person to categorize knowledge, master a skill, solve a problem, and derive meaning when they encounter something that challenges their current knowledge or sparks their curiosity. Inquiry may be inspired by an observation, challenge or experience that inspires curiosity or raises internal questions. The nature of the question or curiosity then leads to investigation and/or further observation that continues in a feedback loop until a conclusion can be formed. The process is one that is repeated whenever a challenge to previous understanding, or a new experience or observation is encountered. Being an informal educator and biologist who primarily has taught outdoors, this teaching process is very familiar to me. I find it incredibly rewarding to see others' spirits light up with curiosity and wonder, and see them work through the process to better understand the world around them.
