Class Activity - Wildlife Survey

The goals of this class activity are to educate students about their surrounding environment, introduce them to basic scientific techniques (biology/research/collaboration) and stimulate further exploration of the environment around them....and have fun doing it!

Below is a sample class project webpage. All class sightings are displayed here along with any project goals and details.

Class Survey Overview - 3 steps (Survey, Identify, Document)

1. Survey: Educators are encouraged to take groups of students on wildlife surveys which can be the local school grounds, small pond, wetland and park. There participants survey the local area for wildlife and plants, recording sightings on paper and/or with a photo.
    
2. Identify: With the assistance of a trained educator participants learn to identify wildlife and/or take pictures of what wildlife they see for later identification in a class activity or homework assignment.

   Educators can tailor the activity to the participants level of expertise. Younger students (grades 6-9) could be given the task of finding and identifying commonly known creatures for the local area or looking for a few specific creatures they have been educated about ie. common beetle/bird/plant on a school field (ie. date of first dandelion or Robin appearance). This also helps standardize the project and makes for interesting year over year comparisions of earliest and latest sightings (phenology). Older kids (grades 10-12/university) can be tasked with trying to identify anything they see or less commonly seen/endangered wildlife, this could require assisisted & independent research of wildlife field guides and online resources for homework or in class group work.

3. Document: Confirmed and identified sightings are then submitted to junponline.com with one easy to use online form where the data is then organized and presented to the public in our citizen science community database.

   Photographing what you survey makes for more enjoyable reporting online (but is not required) as you can submit the photo along with the sighting details for later viewing. This also aids tremendously in the study and identification process which can be very challenging. Fortunately digital cameras are very inexpensive and we usually have an old one at home that could be used by students. There are a few websites with many active users helping people identify what they see, all you need to do is provide a photo, these sites often provide a great deal of educational resources on the specific creature as well (ie. whatsthatbug.com).

Educators are encouraged to participate in the Spring, when wildlife comes out of hibernation and is migrating (or vice versa for the Fall). Surveys at these times identify patterns in behavioir determined by changing environmental factors such as global warming. Teachers can do surveys annually for each new class and results can be compared to prior class surveys.

Sample Class Webpage