Category: EarthSchool

Scientists need your help to find out what ants in your neighborhood like to eat. Would you ask an ant to join you for lunch? A team of researchers at North Carolina State University in Raleigh calls on citizen scientists around the world to flip the picnic concept – they want *us* to feed the […]

By Egle Marija Ramanauskaite, Citizen Science Coordinator at EyesOnALZ December 21st, 2017, just might enter the history books as the first day a citizen science trophy was ever awarded to a school. The trophy, bestowed to 250 students for contributing to Alzheimer’s research, is now proudly displayed next to sports trophies & special achievement awards at a […]

Join Jojo and her family counting bats as citizen scientists in the soon-to-be-released book Bat Count: A Citizen Science Story! You can read — and listen to — a free digital review copy today.  The story, written  by Philadelphia-area author Anna Forrester and illustrated by Susan Detwiler, encourages kids to get involved in citizen science and make it their […]

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 […]

In the next two posts, as part of our SciStarter in the Classroom collection, guest contributor Ben Graves will share his personal experiences and advice for using citizen science in the classroom. Graves is a fellow with the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation, which supports a small cohort of early-career teachers across the United States with intensive professional development. […]

Editor’s Note: This post has been republished and shared in celebration of SciStarter’s Back To School campaign where you will find 10 citizen science projects aligned with Next Generation Science Standards.   Using Journey North’s Monarch Project to Meet Common Core and Next Generation Teaching Standards Citizen Science and Monarch Migration as a Teaching Tool […]

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 […]

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 […]

Citizen scientists around the world finally have their own anthem! Monty Harper, an Oklahama-based educator and entertainer, has released his latest song, “Citizen Scientist,” featuring SciStarter! We’ve adopted this as our theme song. Harper drew inspiration from the research of Dr. Janette Steets, a botanist at Oklahoma State University. And the best part is that […]