JoinAll Citizen Science resources
Journal Article
Nature at your door: Partnering with families to support nature-based engagement
Through regular classroom communications teachers facilitate family partnership in nature-based learning. Teachers can promote family engagement in the local environment and foster lifelong naturalists with a strong commitment to the earth through co...
By Jennifer Gallo-Fox, Ariadni Kouzeli
Journal Article
In an age where catastrophic damage from climate-related events circulates through social and print media, it is important to build communities of hope for our elementary students (Hestness, et al., 2019, Sanchez, et al., 2021). Climate justice educa...
By Candace Penrod
Journal Article
Civic Engagement for Climate Action, Resilience, and Hope for Local Waterways
Climate education in elementary grades offers a chance to teach climate science, to help students understand how serious climate change is, to focus on ecosystems and global social systems, and to work toward justice-oriented solutions. This article ...
By Melissa Braaten, Tiffany Boyd, Jessica Bean
Reports Article
Freebies and Opportunities for Science and STEM Teachers, March 5, 2024
By Debra Shapiro
Journal Article
Creating a Buzz About Community-Engaged Research
School districts across the United States are actively exploring avenues to aid elementary-aged Gifted and Talented (GT) students in conducting student-driven research, value science within their local community, develop students’ science practices...
By , , , ,
Journal Article
Looking for something REALLY exciting, creepy-crawly, accessible and pertains to phenomenon-based/ storyline-based NGSS? Bugscope is a free educational project at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. K-12 classrooms have an opportunity to ...
By , ,
Journal Article
Growing Beyond Earth: Cultivating 21st century science exploration
Citizen Science column for the Jan/Feb 2024 Science Scope Journal...
Reports Article
Freebies and Opportunities for Science and STEM Teachers, January 23, 2024
By Debra Shapiro
Reports Article
Freebies and Opportunities for Science and STEM Teachers, November 21, 2023
By Debra Shapiro
Journal Article
Beavers are social mammals who live in groups, known as colonies, and they construct dams and lodges, which modify the surrounding landscape. In their role as “ecosystem engineers,” beavers are considered to be a “keystone” species. A keyston...
By Jill Nugent
Journal Article
Using iNaturalist to Support Place-Based Learning and Data Analysis
Often, we think that to learn about nature, students must be in a “natural” place to experience the environment, but this assumption can be problematic on multiple levels. Not all schools have the resources to take hundreds of students on a field...
By Amanda V. Garner and Joshua Rosenberg
Journal Article
Emphasis on Quality in iNaturalist Plant Collections Enhances Learning and Research Utility
Following the switch to remote online teaching in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the plant taxonomy course at the University of Georgia (UGA) switched to iNaturalist for the specimen collection portion of the course requirements. Building off ext...
By Mason C. McNair, Chelsea M. Sexton, and Mark Zenoble
Reports Article
Freebies and Opportunities for Science and STEM Teachers, September 26, 2023
By Debra Shapiro
Journal Article
Collaboration Through Critical Service Learning—In Search of Earth’s Secrets
By Faye Bruun, Katherine Dion, Kimberly Moore, Robin Johnson, Cherie McCollough, and Carmen Tejeda-Delgado
Blog Post
The Global Importance of Science Education
By Julie A. Luft, Ph.D., NSTA President 2023-2024