Kathy Nerdy Birdies
Forum Replies Created
Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
-
I really like the idea of peer reviews and mentor reviews. I think something I would incorporate is a gallery walk of final projects, where peers and parents can provide constructive feedback, offer praises, etc. Because of my mixed-ages and skills and lack of time I am not sure I can incorporate rubrics just yet. Many of the children in my program have learning disabilities and would require a lot of help to write, etc. Personally, going through the inquiry process and making connections is the most important aspect of the program I lead and my main focus.
-
I work primarily with the homeschool community and grading/assessment has never been part of my program because we are more of an enrichment/extracurricular opportunity for families. I would say my biggest hurdle with implementing this into my program would be time. We only meet 2-3 times a month for 4 hrs at a time, only about 45 minutes of that time is for our core lesson. My birding club only meets 1 time a month so again time is a huge factor.
-
I recently got involved with CoCoRahs which allows community scientists to measure precipitation in their own backyard, school grounds, or organization grounds. The database is easily accessible by anyone and you don't have to submit data in order to use the data. There are many ways this data can be used. One lesson plan I created recently involved students looking at rainfall data over the last 10 yrs for Tucson, AZ to determine the best month for land managers to spray pesticides on invasive bufflegrass, which can only be sprayed when it greens up. They would pull the rainfall data for the last 10 yrs and calculate the averages for each month of the year over the last 10 yrs to narrow down what month historically receives the most rainfall. Their data should lead them to choosing a month during the monsoon season (July-October).
-
Our program is 100% outdoors and we allow students around 1.5 hrs (out of our 4 hr day) to explore on their own, we call this exploratory play. During this time students explore and interact with the natural world on their own without the educator guiding time. This allows students to support their natural curiosity, to discover, and to explore without barriers. They use all their available senses and their observations to try to figure out the world. We have found that this really helps students with their curiosity and their questions. We have found that students will approach the educators during this time to show us their nature finds, tell us about something they saw or did, etc. We then incorporate these experiences into our lessons. Sometimes we get a bit derailed from our scheduled topic for the day, but that is totally okay because we often end up having a deeper experience. Another key component of our program is that we begin each class with nature journaling. Students are able to journal about anything they wish though we do give them guidance on the types of things they should include in their journals on our first day. One of the things we encourage them to do is write down questions they have about their observations. During lessons, we encourage curiosity and questions by starting with, KWL charts - What I know, what I want to know, what I learned, or I notice, I wonder, It reminds me of. These prompts help students begin to think about our topic and guide them in asking questions.
-
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.
-
I think getting them excited about learning and peaking their curiosity is step one. Let them explore their passions and interests and make the learning applicable to their lives and place. After that making sure they know their opinions and thoughts are important and valued and that no question or thought is a dumb one. I think students are often worried that they won't say the right thing or get the right answer. But in inquiry based learning there may not be a cut and dry answer and their investigation is what will lead them to the answer. Lastly modeling for the students. If they see that the teacher is excited and that being curious is a life-long skill they too will be excited. It is also ok for the teacher to say they don't have or know the answer. This shows students that even adults don't know everything and often have to do inquiry as well, to find the answer.
-
I wanted to say that I love the lemon activity. I have used that activity at the start of all my ECO programs since the first time I took this class many years ago. It is such an amazing activity that gets students to use all if their senses plus it also gets them exploring with science tools.II have scales, tape measures, magnifying glasses, etc available for them to use. The most impactful thing about the sound map was hearing all of the natural sounds, even in an urban area filled with houses. Observation skills are such an important part of the programs I run and we spend a lot of time learning this skill. I notice, I wonder and it reminds me.... are phrases I introduce my students to, not only in my environmental programs, but also my art club, zoo club, etc. One sense that students take for granted is sight. They often just look at something and think they are seeing everything. One thing I have introduced, besides magnifying glasses and/or a digital microscope so they can see smaller details, is a dental mirror. The mirror gets them to look at things a bit differently from different angles and maybe look at parts that are harder to see or obscured. The kids absolutely love this simple, inexpensive tool. I also get students touching things. Loose parts are a large part of our early childhood program. The loose parts allow them to touch and manipulate various natural objects. I have done the sound map before with students and I've also done an activity where they record the sounds using describing words. And I've done it where they draw the sound waves: pitch, frequency, etc. (This is a good one for older students)
-
I am lucky in that my program is completely outdoors and designed primarily for the homeschool community, so I don't have any standards or curriculum that I must follow, and I don't have to answer to an administrator. Citizen science has always been one of the main pillars of my program however I want to be more intentional about it moving forward. I want students to not just collect data but actually begin to use the data to ask questions and solve problems. I also want to include the step of having their peers review their claims prior to submitting their evidence and claims to scientists. I also hope they can go a step further and actually implement their solution. Throughout this course, I have used my fall theme, of invasive species as an example. So when I talk about taking it a step further an example relating to invasive species, would be them helping the park with restoration and/or eradication of the species in question. Another aspect I am adding into our citizen science work is having students create informational brochures and/or posters that they can share with the public to raise awareness about invasive species and why they are a problem for our fragile desert ecosystem.
-
I would like to improve on and model the "Attend to the Unexpected" teaching practice for the students. I want the students to know that failing is okay and part of the learning process. I would like to use the unexpected failures they encounter as teachable moments and be able to encourage them to continue pressing on.
-
I have used Project Feeder Watch, Budburst, CoCoRaHS and Lost Ladybug with learners, as well as many others. My biggest suggestion is to make sure you know your ecosystem before choosing a project. For example I am still kinda new to AZ and had listed Lost Ladybug project as an option for our citizen science project last year for our K-3rd graders. I was still learning about our ecosystem and when things begin to bloom, become active, etc. They chose LLP as the one to participate in, however ladybugs don't start showing up in AZ late spring, so it was not a good option for the school year. I do CoCoRaHS with my family and the teens in our program however, this is probably not one younger students would enjoy if you live in an arid state, because they won't be logging much data since it doesn't rain much. I think when choosing the project it is important to find one that will be engaging and get the kids excited about participating in citizen science, so knowing your ecosystem and students interests will be very helpful.
-
Community science and stewardship are 2 of the main pillars of my program so for my activity example, I am using an activity that I set up for the fall, that involves the students participating in community science where they provided the opportunity “to do” science. The first step in this activity will be for students to come up with a research question regarding an invasive species in Arizona. From here they will find an online community where they can submit their data and/or find additional data to analyze later. Hopefully, they will also connect with a scientist in the community that will be able to assist them in answering any questions they may have and review their findings when the time comes. After students have formulated their questions and connected with an online community they will be able to practice their fieldwork skills and prepare to observe nature as scientists. Students will utilize skills such as observation, data collection, species identification, teamwork, and using scientific tools. Next students will make a claim and back up those claims with the evidence they collected. After making a claim students will work with their peers to review their claims and engage in dialogues that allow them to improve their data quality and communication skills. Finally, students will share their research data with the community. By connecting student’s fieldwork to professional scientists, they will see real-life results and applications. This learning experience will look different across grade levels, but the underlying process that the student scientists will go through will be similar. To raise public awareness about and get the public involved with helping to stop the spread of invasive species students will also create posters that can be displayed at local nature and environmental organizations. An additional aspect I hope the students can add to this activity is actually doing a stewardship/restoration project where they can remove the invasive species they researched. This activity is an example of open inquiry. This activity allows students to ask questions, investigate problems, make observations, search for possible solutions, test out ideas, and think like scientists.
-
Inquiry-learning is a holistic approach to science and a complex cycle that involves many people and does not follow set steps. It allows learners to become scientists and "do" real science. The inquiry process is learner and curiosity driven, and creates lifelong learners and a love of learning!
Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)