Category: Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering)

In this month’s SciStarter podcast, we’re heading back to school to see how teachers and even college professors are making citizen science a part of their classroom instruction. Participating in real science conducted by actual researchers can make science lessons come alive for students at all grade levels. Education leaders in Florida, North Carolina and […]

By Lea Shell Middle school students are presented with a bucket of what, at first glance, looks like dirt. They pull handfuls onto their lab bench and carefully begin to sift. “I found a shark tooth!” one student exclaims,  prompting the other students to peer more intently at their own piles. Before long, they see […]

Going out of your way to attract mosquitoes seems like the last thing anyone would want to do, but that is exactly what the national Invasive Mosquito Project is hoping volunteers will do in the name of public health. Managed through the United States Department of Agriculture, the Invasive Mosquito Project aims to track the spread of […]

Using Pond Watch citizen science project, monitoring dragonflies, in the classroom to meet Next Generation Science Standards and other teaching standards.

The World Water Monitoring Challenge results are out! Earlier this year, I found myself hanging over a concrete ledge by the Charles River. But not to worry – it was nothing dire. I was actually trying to collect a water sample for the World Water Monitoring Challenge. Talk about diving headfirst into citizen science. On […]

Using Celebrate Urban Birds (CUB) to Meet Common Core and Next Generation Teaching Standards   Grades: K-12th Description: Celebrate Urban Birds (CUB) is a project through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It is a year round project specifically designed to engage classrooms with local urban birds and citizen science. Cornell offers a free classroom kit for […]

Using School of Ants Citizen Science to Meet Common Core and Next Generation Teaching Standards in the Classroom Discovering Ants Grades: K-12th Description: School of Ants (SOA) is one of many urban wildlife citizen science projects hosted through the Your Wildlife project. Your Wildlife and School of Ants focuses on biodiversity and citizen-scientist driven inquiry […]

Why Classrooms Should Integrate Citizen Science After writing quite a few entries in the series “Citizen Science in the Classroom” I thought it would be helpful to explain a bit more about the benefits of citizen science science in the classroom, and to provide a useful resource to teachers and administrators that may help in […]

  Using Cornell Ornithology Lab’s Project NestWatch to Meet Common Core and Next Generation Teaching Standards Grades: K-12th Description: Project NestWatch is hosted through Cornell University’s Ornithology lab located in Sapsucker Woods, Ithaca, New York. When you look for it on the SciStarter website or online remember that the project’s name is one word not […]

Using Journey North’s Monarch Project to Meet Common Core and Next Generation Teaching Standards Citizen Science and Monarch Migration as a Teaching Tool Grades: K-12th Description: Journey North (JN) is a citizen science project for the observation and tracking of seasonal weather changes and phenology or life cycle changes in animals and plants. This website […]