Jen Sauer of South Doyle Middle School’s Green STEM and Arts Class excels in engaging students with iNaturalist!
iScience is a schoolyard program for middle school classrooms where students learn the breadth and value of their local biodiversity through experiential, nature-based learning, fostering stewardship and interest in STEAM fields. The iScience program is a partnership between the Tennessee Valley Authority and Discover Life in America that provides grades 5-8 tools and guidance, like using iNaturalist, to observe and record the species living on their school grounds.
Students at South Doyle Middle School are taking their classroom outside with the iScience program! Jen Sauer is the teacher that started the program and has been very successful in engaging the students. They have made 1,207 observations and documented 367 species on their school campus! We reached out to Jen to ask her about her experiences using iNaturalist with the students! Here’s what she had to say:
Jaimie: How do you introduce the iScience program and using iNaturalist to the students?
Jen: I first shared iNaturalist to parents and encourage families to explore together in their communities. I have found that there are students who really like iNaturalist and they share their observations with their families. It is a lovely way for families to spend precious free time together. In general, I introduce it in the second week of class (I teach a related arts science enrichment class so my classes are only 9 weeks long). I start off with teaching how to make observations and then I share iNaturalist as a tool to use in my class so it’s good to get them to use early on.
Jaimie: What ways that you have been able to incorporate your findings in iNaturalist through the iScience Program into your STEM curriculum?
Jen: The 6th grade science standards are good to use as ecosystems, biodiversity, and symbiotic relationships are covered. Starting with a bioblitz is a great lesson to really get students thinking about how biodiverse their school community is and then to use their observations as data to back up their claim on the health of their community. On our ipads I only use my account so students can see their observations in our school account; this helps with internet safety issues that can arise. Students see what we have observed and then need to make a group food web that shows various symbiotic relationships. SEEK is what I use with my 6th graders if they download it on their phone since there is no age limit and there are fun badges you can earn after finding so many species. I have also used iNaturalist observations with 8th graders and had them make a cladogram with some of the species they have found on campus.
Jaimie: Any fun stories on schoolyard discoveries? Favorite findings by the students?
Jen: I love this question. So this past May, our lovely iScience volunteer Aurora did a bioblitz with us for the City Nature Challenge. She brought with her various tools the kids loved using like a beat sheet, bug boxes and butterfly nets. But the cool find that day was a vole that the students caught with a net. It was very fast and squirmy so the act of catching it was a huge badge of honor for the students involved. I don’t think anyone had really seen one up close like that before so that was a good find. We had loads of fun making observations of the 17-year cicadas in 2021 and then of course students wearing them into their next class. I had to follow them and make sure they freed their new friends. The most intense observation was a cute groundhog that oddly just stood there as my 8th graders surrounded it and took photos. I could tell something was wrong and then sadly it slumped over and after we left, died. Middle schoolers are known for their lack of restraint but this time they held back and practiced some compassion for the sick creature. Students love to find aquatic salamanders, daddy long legs, crayfish, fish, beetles…sadly plants are usually not at the top of the list. When they are in bloom though violets are a big hit.
We love all the great experiences that Jen provides for her students to learn and connect with the natural world from school campus biodiversity studies to planting veggie and native gardens to participating in Backyard Bird Counts! See more about the program here.
To see the South Doyle Middle School students’ observations on iNaturalist:
For more on our iScience Program:
