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Citizen Science Programs

Provided by: Illinois Department of Natural Resources

Articles/Websites

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Synopsis

This resource provides links and descriptions to a number of citizen science projects that students in Illinois can participate in.
The projects largely involve data collection and wildlife spotting to help bolster baseline data to help scientists see changes in biodiversity or weather patterns.

Subjects: Biology, Civics

Authors: Illinois Department of Natural Resources

Region: Illinois

Languages: English

Positives

This webpage gives students many options to become more involved in citizen science programs.
The different citizen science programs can be adapted to a wide range of ages depending on teacher guidance and/or modeling.
Illinois-based resources will help students become invested in the projects pertinent to their homes.
Tons of resources attached to the citizen science program will help students dive into the environment around them.

Prerequisites

Students should have a basic understanding of how data collection is done.
Students should have an understanding of how seasons/weather affect a given population of animal species at any given point throughout the year.
Some of the programs require an account to be created to receive all details of the citizen program.

Differentiation & Implementation

Several of the different citizen science program links contain videos to help build students' background knowledge of the particular program being discussed.
Students can decide which citizen science program seems more interesting to them and develop a potential passion project based on the description of the program link.
Many of the different citizen science programs contain data recording and can lend themselves to creating different types of tables, graphs, and coordinate planes to read the data.
Students can create a year-long calendar addressing which specific citizen projects could be done during a certain timeframe (due to weather, hibernation, and migration patterns).
Students can come up with other citizen science programs that are not addressed on this webpage and create a proposal for a new program.
Students can connect the citizen science programs to climate change in a cause-and-effect graphic organizer and discuss the different ways climate change (temperature change, changes in precipitation, extreme weather events, etc.) could change the data collection for the different citizen science programs.

Scientist Notes

Teaching Tips

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Resource Type and Format

All resources can be used for your educational purposes with proper attribution to the content provider.

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