Diario del proyecto Stonehurst's Flora, Fauna, and Fungi

11 de agosto de 2020

How This Project Began

This project began when I, like most teachers in the Washington D.C. region, suddenly shifted my classroom to distance learning in March. After a couple of weeks of teaching online, my head of school challenged our faculty to find creative ways to get our students off their screens for a portion of the school day. My middle school life science students were wrapping up a study of the diversity of life, so a nature journal project seemed like a good way to take advantage of something we don’t have in our classroom – the great outdoors. One of my goals was for the students to learn about taxonomy, the classification of living things, and to gain an appreciation of the biodiversity around them. With libraries closed and my classroom resources sequestered at school, I encouraged them to use the Seek app by iNaturalist to identify their finds. Seek is great for kids because it does not require them to create a login or provide personal information. I began making short videos for my students during my daily walks in Stonehurst, sharing with them the discoveries I was adding to the iNaturalist database.

It was early spring. The trees were beginning to leaf out, and the first ephemeral flowers of the season were blooming. Using my cell phone to take photos, I began documenting the unfolding of spring. Soon the bees showed up, followed by the insects of summer – leafhoppers, beetles, katydids, cicadas. So far, I’ve collected photos of nearly 150 species, mainly in the green spaces around Stonehurst’s perimeter. I’ve seen many more living things that were not easily captured with a cell phone – birds, butterflies, and even a black bear, oh my!

I like to use iNaturalist to record the biodiversity of my favorite outdoor spaces. By creating a subdivision place in the iNaturalist database, I was able to filter my observations and see the biodiversity in Stonehurst. I typically don’t record multiples of a species in an area unless it’s unusual (or one of my favorites!). If other observers add their sightings to a project, a picture of biodiversity plus abundance emerges. The biodiversity in Stonehurst's little patch of the planet amazes me every time I go for a walk and see something new.

Publicado el agosto 11, 2020 03:51 TARDE por srdinva srdinva

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