Allison

As an informal educator, I don't typically have opportunities to use rubrics or to grade the work of my students. I'd love to develop some kind of after school science club or camp where we would have more time to dive into report writing. Even if I didn't give out grades, having some form of a rubric would give the students a clear idea of what their project should look like and also give the students a chance for peer review, which I think would be the most helpful tool!

I usually turn to the iNaturalist database for any information I need, as they have data on every kingdom! iNaturalist data is accessible to anyone, even if you don't have an account. I think it would be a lot of fun to study data trends between different species, or even broader than that. For example, we can explore the relationship between the observations of pollinators and flowering plants, or something more specific like the observations of Monarchs versus milkweed plants. I think a large database like iNaturalist would provide the widest opportunities for students with any interests!

I find that responses are often different depending on if I'm talking to the kids inside our Nature Center or if we're outside in the park. In the Nature Center, they're seated at tables while I stand at the front of the room. In these situations, they know they're supposed to sit quietly and listen to the teacher. It's hard to start discussions like this. However, when we go outside and we are all standing together in a group, it helps to break down the barrier between teacher and student and we can begin to have a discussion as a group of scientists. As someone else pointed out, the shy students will also come up to me when we're outside. They are able to speak to me directly instead of saying something to the whole group and with positive reinforcement, the students gain more confidence to speak to me and the other students.

I most enjoyed hearing a sound and then figuring out where it was on my map. It was like a spacial exercise or puzzle for my brain. I could hear a bird chirping and try to decide how far away it was. Whenever I'm outside, I usually listen for small sounds around me that help me find creatures, like insects, herps, or birds. But when I did this exercise, I noticed constant sounds farther away that I would normally block out. I also had to make sure that I didn't focus on what I was writing so much that I could miss sounds. This would be a great activity to do with kids and adults to help connect them with the nature around them and to help with multitasking!

Because I teach programs in a park, I believe that I often engage students with complex systems and also connect them to their local environment. However, I need to work harder to model the first practice, "position youth as people who do science." With a limited time for programs, I don't often engage the kids as scientists as much as just help them experience science and nature. I need to do a better job of facilitating inquiry and data collection instead of directly telling or leading them to what I'm trying to teach.

I work in a Nature Center and lead just one hour nature programs for kids of all ages. It is very difficult in this setting to teach specific procedures and to see progress, as we don't have the same group of kids each time. I do have a topic that I really enjoy teaching that I believe often falls under structured inquiry or guided inquiry, depending on the day, and that topic is seeds! I talk with the kids about how it's important for seeds to get distance from the parent plant for their survival and the survival of the species, then we speculate on how the seeds could travel. While we don't write anything down because of the time constraints, we discuss a question, go out into the park to gather up seeds of all types, think about how each of the seeds could travel, and then test the "hypothesis." Or if we cannot gather seeds, I would provide them with the materials, which would be the structured inquiry approach. I enjoy the first scenario much more because they get to find the test subjects and decide on the procedure to test out their hypothesis. If I could do this program, and others like it, with a little more time I could have them write down their questions, hypothesis, and data in a journal. However, I could do a much better job communicating this scientific process verbally instead of the more unstructured flow I typically lean toward.

As I did the concept map I just let my mind wander and wrote down everything, so it's a little more personalized to how I consider inquiry. To me, inquiry is natural wonder and excitement over the magic in life. I experience inquiry everyday, like when I wake up in the morning and immediately look out the window to see what birds are visiting my bird feeder. Inquiry comes from experiences that make you go "huh" and make you want to keep learning new things. While this comes naturally to me in my adult life, I can see how inquiry, especially scientific inquiry, needs to be facilitated in youth. I'm very excited to get back in the classroom and help kids see the wonders in science and nature so they can gain a lifelong curiosity.