The iScience program is one of the most rewarding programs that I coordinate with Discover Life in America. If you are not familiar with this program, it is program that we have partnered with the Tennessee Valley Authority TVA on to provide materials and resources to educators of 5th to 8th grade to conduct schoolyard biodiversity studies, using iNaturalist. The program aims to increase awareness of and appreciation for the incredible biodiversity around us, as well as foster young people’s interest in STEM fields.
I recently spoke with one of our iScience educators, Kim Brown from Signal Mountain Middle School (Hamilton County, TN) who has gone above and beyond with the iScience program with her STEM classes. They currently have over 4,700 observations! Some of her students have even been “converted” to lifelong community scientists” continuing to use iNaturalist, long after the class. I asked Kim to share some of the ways that she is able to incorporate this iScience program into her classes and make learning about biodiversity so much fun for her students! Thank you, Kim, for sharing your passion for community science, biodiversity and stewardship with your students and creating lifelong learners! –Jaimie Matzko, Biodiversity Program Specialist
This is what she shared with us:
“We just started our iNaturalist unit and the kids are loving it. They get so excited on the trail and go nuts when they find things. It is so funny that they have seen a million snails but today when they found a snail, you would think it was a pot o’ gold! They were all excited and crowding around it and everyone got a photo.
My favorite finds are snakes. I am a herpetologist and any kind of reptile or amphibian makes my day. Last year, one of the kids found a huge eastern hognose snake and held it so that the kids could touch it. That went into our project for sure! Yesterday, one of the boys found an eastern garter snake and entered it into inat. I am sending you a photo of that snake. Today, we found a box turtle and a huge batch of chicken of the woods. That was pretty exciting, too.
While it is easy to build excitement for this program, it is a little harder to build respect for the professional nature of the app and for the fragility of the environment. We spend time talking about citizen science, crowd sourcing, etiquette on the trail, iNaturalist etiquette, and behavior expectations. We talk about flipping rocks and logs and how it is important to return them to their original positions and also how they should ‘take only photos and leave only footprints.’ We talk about respecting animals and plants and making sure we don’t damage or hurt them.
We also spend a day practicing essential photography skills to make the observations more useful for scientists (making sure photos are in focus and well lit, taking multiple perspectives, holding you hand behind small objects for scale and to help the camera focus, getting close up shots, cleaning up the background). After going over these rules and practicing them, the kids get into small groups to critique one another’s methods and offer feedback.
I have a tutorial on how to enter observations and we go through the steps as they enter their first one. We have a classroom set of ipods and they use their camera roll to enter their photos. After they get used to uploading, we start hiking. My expectation is for every student to upload 10 observations by the end of the unit. Most upload a lot more than that.
I have quite a few kids who are still using the app years after learning it in my class. That is rewarding. I think that my passion for it helps. I currently have 7200 observations in iNat and am adding all the time.”
Here are some testimonials from her students:
Hudson Crowder (7th grade): “Being able to go on hikes using iNaturalist is a pleasure. It allows us to know more about the animals that build their homes near Signal Mountain Middle High School. I am very glad that this is possible for us to do, and I am excited to learn more.”
Lily Garney (7th grade): “Growing up with hikes and little adventures in nature really opened up something in me. As soon as I get home, I know I am going to download iNaturalist. The feeling of walking around in nature and taking a picture of a animal or plant that I don’t understand gives me a feeling that I’m for learning more things everyday. iNaturalist isn’t gonna be something I only do in school but something I will (continue to) enjoy.”
Grace Hilvers (7th grade): “iNaturalist is cool because you get to meet a community of people and scientists and learn so many new things!”
Daniel Romero Agustin (7th grade): “Doing this project is actually really exciting because when we all go as a class, we can find animals/plants and upload on iNaturalist. This is also very exiting because we can find out really interesting facts about the animals.”
