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.