Expanding on our work with Students Discover, we will be rolling out several new citizen science-based lesson plans over the next couple of months on our Education page. We’ve focused on global, long-running citizen science projects and have worked closely with educators to create lesson plans aligned to Next Generation Science Standards.
Our goals are simple:
- Engage students in citizen science so they have opportunities to:
- Participate in authentic scientific research.
- Feel ownership over their learning.
- Be part of a growing community of citizen scientists.
- Improve scientific literacy by understanding the process of science rather than just memorizing facts or doing canned science experiments wherein we already know the results.
- Partner with educators to:
- Feel empowered to incorporate citizen science into their classroom with complete, quality lessons available free of charge.
- Create and modify lesson plans and units related to citizen science to work with the standards that they are responsible for addressing in their curriculum.
- Embrace the unknown of authentic scientific research.
Our first lesson of this type, NestWatch: Backyard Investigations, was co-created with talented and experienced art teacher Jean Gray Mohs and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. To download this lesson, simply visit the lesson page, click “Request Course Packet” and fill out the short questionnaire. Once you have submitted your information the download will begin immediately.
What grade(s) are the lesson plans for?
Targeted for middle school, but could be adapted! http://education.yourwildlife.org/teaching-modules/nestwatch/