Excited about science!

A few years back when I was teaching middle school language arts, I joined my science teacher friend at a 4-day workshop 6 hours south from my home.  Granted one of the motivators of taking the workshop was that it was an "vacation" with a friend away from home, near the ocean, free of charge, and I was getting paid a stipend from the organization giving the training after all was said and done.

Aside from the immediate and monetary benefits of attending the workshop, it was an opportunity to be trained in something science related, which appealed to me as a language arts teacher who loves science, and that uses technology.  It also is a way for my students to have an impact on their community and have a genuine purpose for their inquiry-based learning and exploring.

Now that I'm being relocated to another building in my district, I'm excited to get started.  I was so overwhelmed with my own learning last year, that I didn't get the opportunity to even consider implementing the unit in my class.   This school is located near a boat landing on a river, and has a wooded area near our playground.  These are perfect locations for my 4th graders and I to look for native and invasive species in both plants and aquatic animals.

The whole purpose of the unit is for students to identify species of plants, insects, or aquatic animals, by using species cards. They collect data, draw the species, use the species cards to determine if they have found or not found the species they were looking at, as well as include the coordinates of where the species was found.  All of this data is uploaded to the website called Vitalsignsme.org and is eventually verified whether it was found or not.  

It's a process, but after all is said and done, students have helped their community, both local and state, by identifying a species, and if it is an invasive species, then scientists in our state know where it is found and can monitored.  The unit can be kept as a small unit, or one that is on-going throughout the school year.  The thing is, in our area, we have snow for a large part of the school year, so we can't continue our investigations until the spring.

As for where it falls in the standards, it includes writing for an audience, student-driven investigations, use of technology, as well as collecting data and making graphs to represent data.  Depending on how in-depth the teacher wants to take the lessons, depends on how cross-curricular it becomes.

The training I received provided me with materials, such as cameras, GPS devices, contraptions for collecting aquatic plants and capturing aquatic animals.  The website itself provides tons of materials for teachers, citizen scientists, students, and anyone who wants to participate in any way.

I feel it's the perfect unit to begin the school year with, and one that can be my signature unit.  No one else in my new district knows about Vitalsignsme.org or how to perform the lessons.  Although it was originally designed for middle level to high school students, I can see how it can be easily adjusted for upper-level elementary grades, too.  You're welcome to check out the site.  I recently did an investigation for Cow's Parsnip, or Indian Celery, and I'm just waiting for someone to review my data and verify whether or not I've identified it properly.