Russell

I really like this more "unstructured" approach that allows your students to find their own creativity. This is how all scientific studies should be as there isn't just one way to come to a result so why should their only be one way to do a type of inquiry based study.

Is your district moving towards the Next Generation Science Standards or are they simply following your state standards? I remember my biggest impact when learning environmental science in school was actually getting out in the environment. Being in the field and seeing things first hand, instead of from a textbook, really helped open my eyes to what we were learning. We still had to complete standardized testing and everything but being able to collect my own field data and present my own project was where I found myself to be the most successful. I know it's not easy as a teacher to try and include your own programming as you have to follow a certain curriculum but I suggest trying to get your students out of the classroom whenever you have the opportunity. The kind of teaching and learning methods we see today are so heavily structured and too focused on testing scores that it doesn't allow students to truly show if they've learned something or not.

I also chose Monarch Watch and felt it provided a lot of great information. The website wasn't the cleanest looking but it was still pretty easy to navigate. Their collected data from past seasons is very detailed and easily accessible that anyone can use it. My learners also began collecting and raising Monarchs this summer. I feel they could utilize Monarch Watch's collected data to form their own hypotheses and projects. They can also help contribute data as well.

Bringing students outdoors I feel is the best way to get them to question the world around them. They can read about climate change and challenges that are faced on the other side of the world, but when you can bring learners outside and teach them about the changes we see right in our own back yard, well, that is an immediate connection they make that sometimes inspires them to want to make a difference.

I participated in the BioBlitz, specifically utilizing the INaturalist app, by submitting photos of a snake and lizard. During my lunchbreak at work I went outside and did a bit of exploring in the natural spaces by our building. Even just spending 30 minutes outside I witnessed a whole world of natural wonders. I observed a ground squirrel resting on a rock right below a Garter Snake which I though was risky. I then started to ask myself if both animals knew that they were no threat to one another as the squirrel was certainly too large for the snake. My biggest challenge was unfortunately accessing the technology as the cell service at my place of work isn't ideal. Having my learners participate in this would certainly open their minds to the wildlife in their backyard. Hopefully they'd observe some ecological relationships between animals and maybe even some surprising interactions like I witnessed. They may discover species that they didn't even realize were out in this space which could lead them to asking further questions about the ecology of the location.

I felt the most impactful aspect of the sound map was the feeling of grounding myself. It's not often we take moments like these to just sit and get a sense of our surroundings. To be able to hear how much sound actually occurs in my "peaceful" neighborhood was kind of eye opening or dare I say...ear opening. I've always known I had a variety of wildlife around my home, especially birds, but simply listening to the different sounds makes me think I have a larger biodiversity within my property than what I've seen.

I personally feel I exemplify all three UC Davis teaching practices in my educational programming. Right off the bat we encourage our learners to question the natural world around them. We allow them to embrace their passions and curiosities and develop research opportunities around the topics they are most interested in. We don't follow any structured curriculum or state standards, instead we let our learners guide our educational teachings, providing them with a platform to become their own expert. When we embrace these curiosities, we enforce our learner's passions to research and inspire them to want to learn more. They are already scientists just by asking questions and making simple observations, even if they don't realize it right away. When it comes to attending the unexpected, I feel this is a tool that every educator should develop in their toolbox. To be able to embrace teaching moments and adjust programming on the fly can help spark unexpected wonders. I feel another component though is to be able to still connect and redirect the "unexpected" back to the original topic, thus, coming back full circle reinforcing the idea that everything can be connected. It is also important to never shut down a learner's curiosity towards something. If a student gets distracted outside by a plant or animal, roll with it. See how you can connect it to your topic at hand instead of shutting that student down and trying to get their attention back on your subject. Acknowledging those wonders can be just as beneficial as sharing the information itself. And for the third practice of framing the work both globally and locally, we do this in every aspect of our programming. Our facility's entire mission, which is deeply intertwined with all of our educational programming, seeks to connect our learners to the natural world locally, regionally and globally. We challenge students to question issues half a world away, to conduct reasearch and even compose solutions of their own. We bring our participants to local natural spaces to conduct studies, make observations and share their findings with local agencies, scientists and the community.

As an informal educator much of my programs tend to fall under the Guided or Open Inquiry. One of our favorite programs to run is a Water Quality workshop where we take our participants into the field to actually conduct their own studies in local parks & preserves. We first pose a fairly open ended question such as, "How can we tell if an ecosystem is healthy"? Students will typically share similar responses such as mentioning the amount of wildlife, plants, levels of pollution, human influence, etc. We then continue to guide them to figure ways we can actually measure the health of an ecosystem. Learners will think back on their responses and together, form ways of study that'll hopefully help them form a hypothesis. We typically focus on the chemical and biological makeup of our study areas. We provide our learners with such resources as chemical testing kits and biological collection materials. Through this kids are able to experience hands-on, in the field research. They collect water samples from ponds and streams, they take note of the surrounding areas and they even collect macro-invertebrates to study the biodiversity. We will provide some data collection sheets and formulas if they choose to use but we primarily focus on connecting our learners to the space they are studying in. Through the research they gather and experiences they have we hope to instill a sense of appreciation and admiration for local conservation. At the end of these workshops, I typically have my learners gather back together to share their collected data. As a community of their own, they analyze their research and are able to form conclusions and hypotheses that'll help push forward future studies. We also give them the opportunities to then share this data with local scientists and agencies in hopes to help them build connections and form their own community of mentors.