From Zooniverse to the classroom

Eyes on the Wild is a project filled with surprises – hopefully you’ve encountered a few already! It might be a perfectly camouflaged deer peeking out between the reeds, a hawk hiding in the top of a tree on a grass cam, or a well-earned fox or bear after classifying vegetation picture after vegetation. Many of our citizen scientists and research team live for those types of finds! (and we are working to cut down the number of veg pictures this growing season, so hopefully the surprises will be a bit less surprising as the project moves forward) Another surprise that pop up now and again comes not from the image sets, but from our users. Our blog today highlights such a surprise!

Back in early March 2019, I was monitoring the discussion boards as I do from time to time. As an educator as well as a scientist, I was THRILLED to get this comment on a picture of a furry mammal mostly obscured by shrubs: “Our group of third graders cannot agree on what type of animal this could be. Some are certain it’s not a deer. Some think it’s a bear, beaver or wolf. It is definitely interesting!” What a surprise to learn that a class of third graders was classifying and discussing our images! As usual, I responded – not just to their question, but to ask more about how they were using the project in their classroom, and if there were additional ways we could support their learning and investigating. That’s how I met Ms. Erika Lohn.

Ms. Lohn is an educator at a public elementary school in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. In the mornings, she works with high-level readers in grades K-4. These bright and bubbly students start off with a 5 minute ‘warm-up’ to get their brains chugging along – Erika uses this time to encourage them to notice and wonder. She says that the students are able to read high-level text, but often don’t pause to reflect on the meaning and context of what they are reading (a problem/habit I can relate to!). On Wednesdays, these students now devote their ‘notice and wonder time’ to a Wednesday Wildlife Warm-Up by classifying images together on Eyes on the Wild! They read through the field guide, discuss the animals and habitats they are seeing, debate classifications, and contribute to science. How cool is that?!

I took the liberty of inviting myself to one of Ms. Lohn’s Wednesday Wildlife Warm-Ups a few weeks ago (thanks, Erika!). I outfitted myself with a bunch of Cedar Creek and Eyes on the Wild goodies – animal pelts and skulls, bird feathers, Cedar Creek magnets, and a couple of trail cameras – and headed to school. As a group, the students and Ms. Lohn and I took Wednesday Wildlife Warm-Up to a new level. We classified some pictures, discussed animal adaptations, learned about mammal skulls and how scientists use bones to learn about wildlife, talked about the project, looked closely at trail cameras, and went into great detail about how cool fishers are. I had a trail camera set up in the corner of the classroom, so the students even got a chance to be unexpectedly on a camera just like the animals they were viewing. (that was a HUGE hit, as you can imagine!)

The morning spent together was so much fun. I left feeling newly empowered about the contributions of citizen scientists of ALL ages! To see these young scientists asking thoughtful questions, discussing potential animal identifications with their peers and thinking about the diversity of plants and wildlife right here in their own state was incredibly rewarding and a good reminder of the knock-on values of a project like Eyes on the Wild. In addition to learning about the wildlife at the reserve and the effects of predators on trophic cascades, we are helping to inspire the next generation of scientists. And inspire them we did! Based on feedback from the students, Erika and I are going to try to arrange a field trip for her class up to Cedar Creek next year, and I plan to pop back in for Wednesday Wildlife Warm-Ups from time to time. And you can be sure that these students (and their families, in some cases!) will keep on classifying on the Eyes on the Wild page!

If you are a teacher or student using Eyes on the Wild in your classroom, we’d love to hear more about what you’re doing! We’re happy to arrange site visits or skype calls as schedules permit, and love featuring students and their contributions on our blog. Email me (caitlin@umn.edu) with your stories, questions and feedback!