Teaching Sequence

5 minutes – Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge
60 minutes – Part B: Information for Citizen Scientists Visiting your School Biodiversity Trail
60 minutes – Part C: Information for Future Students Using your School Biodiversity Trail Data
60+ minutes – Part D: Testing the Packages
15 minutes – Reflection

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Introduction: Remind students that each student should take responsibility for collecting evidence and artefacts about the work that they put into the project, including drafts of everything they create as part of the project and records of any opportunities they pursue (either successfully or unsuccessfully).

Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge

Step 1. Invite students to share the work they have already completed creating their school biodiversity trail. Consider the following questions:

Why have we created a school biodiversity trail? What is the purpose of this trail? (if needed, remind students of the ClimateWatch app and how it will be used to record species along their school trails)
What steps have we been through to create our trail?
What materials have we already created to support the citizen scientists using our trail?
What might the next steps be?

Step 2. Explain to students that, in this lesson, they will be creating two packages of information to help others use their school biodiversity trail:

Package 1 – Information for citizen scientists using the school biodiversity trail
Package 2 – Information for citizen scientists analysing the data collected on the school biodiversity trail

Clarify with students that they be able to incorporate the information they have already created (e.g. maps, field guides and information about how to use the ClimateWatch app/site), create new information and also think about the best ways to present this information, based on the needs of the end users mentioned above.

Part B: Information for Citizen Scientists Visiting Your School Biodiversity Trail

Step 1. Invite students to consider the following questions by completing a THINK PAIR SHARE routine (questions also available on the Student Worksheet):

What is the purpose of our school biodiversity trail?
What do you hope users of the trail might get out of their visit to your trail? What messages do you hope they take away with them?
How can we incorporate our ideas about citizen science into our trail and the information we provide about our trail?
How can we incorporate information about the ClimateWatch app into our trail and the information we provide about our trail?

Record student responses so that they can be accessed later.

Step 2. Now, invite the class to work together to suggest responses to the following question:

What physical material and information would a visitor to our school biodiversity trail need to participate in citizen science, using the ClimateWatch app?

Write student responses on the board, ensuring that they include:

Directions to the trail – You may need a large-scale map showing the site of the trail.
A map of the trail – You will need to ensure your map shows the start and end points of the trail, and includes cartographic conventions (you should be able to use the map you created earlier).
Field guides – You will need the field guides you prepared earlier.
Recording sheet to record observations – What information would you like users to record? E.g. date, season, weather, time of day etc. Consider checking what Earthwatch have used in their ClimateWatch Trails - have they included information you wouldn't want to include? Or would you include further information?
Information about why the trail has been established – You should let users know why this trail has been established and how the data collected will be used.
The name of the trail – Can you think of a name or can you name the trail after you school?
Pen/pencil
Instructions on how to download and use the ClimateWatch app.
Smartphone or Camera (optional)

Some other points to think about when creating your materials for Package 1 include:

What age groups would your trail be suited to? Could you make material that would be suitable for both young children through to adults?
What might be the best way to communicate our ideas about these points to citizen scientists using the trail? Through written, visual or audio content? Justify your ideas. You could consider creating a video that describes the purpose of your trail and what the data aims to collect, as well as any other information that you think might be useful (e.g. Albury Botanic Gardens ClimateWatch Trail)
Who will you invite to use your trail? Will the use of trail and recording of data be open only to citizen scientists within your school community? Or will you also invite the wider community to join in? If so, how will these people get their observations to you?

Part C: Information for Future Students Using Your School Biodiversity Trail Data

Step 1. Now, invite students consider the following question:

What would a future student analysing your data need to correctly use your submitted data?

Invite your class to suggest answers. Be sure to write student responses on the board, ensuring that they include:

Information about why the trail was established – In particular, you will need to explain what things you are looking for in the data, such as the dates of flowering plants becoming earlier, or the earlier than expected appearance of certain animals earlier in a season. You should also include any relevant information raised during the THINK PAIR SHARE routine in Part B.
Directions to the trail – You may need a large-scale map showing the site of the trail.
A map of the trail – You will need to ensure your map shows the start and end points of the trail, and includes cartographic conventions (you should be able to use the map you created earlier).
Photos of the site and trail in its current condition – These could be used to assess environmental improvement or degradation over a period of time.
Field guides – You will need the field guides you prepared earlier.
A copy of the recording sheet with information about why you wanted to collect specific information – Why did you include dates, or seasons, or weather, or time of day etc.?
Templates for graphs and/or charts that can be used to analyse the data – What would be the best way to display the data collect? Can you create a template for the graphs or charts you think would work best and instructions and justification for their use.
Any other information that is relevant to your school biodiversity trail – This may include information about how it was created, any challenges you had in creating the trail, other organisations that are involved in the trail site (such as through management plans etc.), or details about extending the trail to becoming an official ClimateWatch Trail.
Suggestions on how the data collected could be shared or used by the school or community – This could include ideas for engaging the community in action for climate change or biodiversity conservation.

Explain to students that they will now work in their previously established groups to ensure that all this information is compiled in an information package that can be shared with future students completing a biodiversity survey of their school biodiversity trail. You may choose to allow your class to create their packages online, using resources such as Sway, Wix or Google Sites.

Encourage groups to divide this work up. If needed, you could work with groups to assign students particular tasks, or invite them to nominate themselves for the tasks they are most interested in.

Extension – Encourage your class to create immersive tours of their walks using virtual reality software like Aurasma and Metaverse. Alternatively online QR code generators can be used to create virtual tours of the site that show key aspects of their information packages.

Part D: Testing the Packages

Step 1. In the next part of the lesson, students will be heading outdoors to use the ClimateWatch app in the school yard. Invite students to bring their information packages, or devices capable of accessing their online packages, and a notebook and pen/pencil.

Hot tip: Students and teachers wishing to repeat this activity over subsequent years are encouraged to contact the ClimateWatch Program Manager to arrange to have their school added to ClimateWatch as an organisation and add class groups each year.

In preparation for this outdoor element, engage your class in a discussion about the concept of 'treading lightly'. Treading lightly means that you try your best to leave a natural environment in the same condition as you found it. It can even mean leaving it in better condition: take a rubbish bag with you and collect any rubbish you find to dispose of appropriately (e.g. landfill or recycling).

Following this, review your outdoor learning safety procedure. For example, you could adapt the following to the site you are visiting:

Step 2. Invite students to imagine that they have never visited their trail before, and then conduct a biodiversity survey using Package 1.

They should:

Use the map to find the trail
Make observations using the field guides they created
Record their observations using the recording sheets they created

In addition, they should make notes about what aspects of the trail and the information they have created are successful and what aspects need to be amended or improved.

Step 3. With the data they have collected, students should add this information to the data analysis materials they created in in Package 2, such as charts or graphs etc. Again, they should make notes about what aspects of the trail and the information they have created are successful and what aspects need to be amended or improved.

Step 4. Allow students time to amend or improve any aspects from either package that need changing.

Step 5. Finally, invite students to participate in a class discussion around the following points:

After 10 years of observations, what information do you think the biodiversity along your trail might reveal?
What patterns do you think the data might show and why?
How do you think this data might be used to help our understanding of climate change and biodiversity?
How does your trail compare to a ClimateWatch Trail? What are the similarities and differences?

Reflection

Invite students to work independently to answer the following questions (also available on the Student Worksheet):

What do you think are the strengths of the materials you created for your school biodiversity trail?
What might be the weaknesses? Have you included information/materials to help mitigate these weaknesses? Explain your answers.
What opportunities do you think there might be to improve or extend your trail?

Teacher Reflection

Note: Cool Australia and Earthwatch have also partnered to create citizen science units of work for maths and science. To further enhance students' learning, consider teaming up with teachers in these complementary faculties to run a cross-curricular project on phenology and citizen science.

Citizen Science - Gathering Data

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