You’re the Scientist! Citizen Science, Frogs & Cicadas

• In this lesson, students explore the impact citizens can make in contributing to scientific inquiries and studies, with specific examples of citizen science projects students can participate in.
• This resource contains two links to the video (which includes a virtual field trip), a data analysis extension, vocabulary terms, discussion questions about citizen science projects, and a project that students research and participate in.

Positives

• This will inspire students to participate in local data gathering and scientific explorations.
• Links to more than 9 additional resources are included for further learning, including related lab experiments.

Additional Prerequisites

• The video that supports this lesson plan can be accessed through Vimeo (to download and use offline) or YouTube (for closed captioning and language translations).
• Some of the resources are not hyperlinked, so you must search for them individually or reference this similar list of citizen science projects.

Differentiation

• Provide students with time to research the meaning of citizen science using the resources referenced, such as the official citizen science website. 
• The discussion questions could be used as a written task after the virtual field trip, throughout the virtual field trip by pausing, or orally in small group discussion after the virtual field trip.
• As an extension activity, use some of the additional resources on page 6 by using data to extend learning.
• This lesson could be adapted for high school science classes by increasing the autonomy of the students in the research, data, and project sections.
  

This resource addresses the listed standards. To fully meet standards, search for more related resources.