Arizona Project WET's School Water Audit Project combines water education with practical applications of scientific methodology. It brings community members together with students for the purpose of accomplishing a unified goal. It empowers students and adults alike to be responsible water stewards.
Buffelgrass is an invasive weed that has the potential to transform the Sonoran Desert by competing with native shrubs and cacti for scarce resources, and carrying catastrophic wildfires that can erase native vegetation from the landscape, essentially forever. Our iconic saguaro cactus, and other native plants have no natural defenses against fire, since they never needed them before. A buffelgrass fire is hot enough that it will kill off native plants and seeds, so that only buffelgrass will grow back. Buffelgrass is also present in our neighborhoods, and threatens our homes and businesses with its high potential for fire. SABCC can connect you with groups that are helping to remove this threat from our environment. It's great exercise as well!
http://www.buffelgrass.org/voluteeropportunities
USA National Phenology Network
The USA National Phenology Network brings together citizen scientists, government agencies, non-profit groups, educators and students of all ages to monitor the impacts of climate change on plants and animals in the United States. The network harnesses the power of people and the Internet to collect and share information, providing researchers with far more data than they could collect alone. http://www.usanpn.org/
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http://www.usanpn.org/education/clearinghouse
National Optical Astronomy Observatory
The GLOBE at Night program is an international citizen-science campaign to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution by inviting citizen-scientists to measure their night sky brightness and submit their observations to a website from a computer or smart phone. Light pollution threatens not only our "right to starlight", but can affect energy consumption, wildlife and health. People in 115 countries contributed over 76,000 measurements during the campaigns each winter/spring over the last 7 years, making GLOBE at Night the most successful light pollution awareness campaign to date.
Globe at Night http://www.globeatnight.org/
Dark Skies Ranger Program http://www.globeatnight.org/dsr/
The camp guides provide examples of one-day, two-day and week-long programs in 4 theme areas: Life Science, Physical Science, Earth and Space Science and Engineering. Each day contains six to eight hours of activities totaling more than 35 hours of instructional time. The camp template will help you develop an appropriate learning progression that focuses on the concepts necessary to engage in learning. The activities and experiences in the guides come from NASA's vast collection of educational materials.
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) clubs allow children to explore, investigate and discover STEM subjects in a stimulating learning environment, away from the constraints of the school timetable or a prescribed curriculum. They allow pupils and their club leaders to work together and explore many different ideas and activities. Although they complement the curriculum, they are not designed to be about writing, tests, or exams. Activities may involve practical experiments, investigation, discussion and reflection. Most of all, they should be fun. They can motivate and build confidence in young people who struggle with STEM subjects, and provide an extra outlet for children who already show aptitude and are interested in furthering their learning.
The aims of STEM clubs are:
to enrich, enhance and extend the Key Stage 3 (S1/S2 or equivalent 11-14 yrs) curriculum
improve attainment in, interactions with, and experiences of, the STEM subjects among pupils
improve collaboration between schools and also between schools and industry
encourage pupils to continue their education in STEM beyond GCSE and Diploma (or equivalent qualification) level
This website provides a searchable database of project ideas.
Links to numerous citizen science and community service programs, including: "Adopt Your Watershed", "Linking Girls to the Land", Service Learning overviews and instructions, waste reduction tools for schools, water quality monitoring instructions, backyard conservation, the "Cool School Challenge", "Flying WILD" and many more. Several of the resources are available in Spanish as well.
Links to hundreds of citizen science projects nationally with which your students can get involved, including Nature's Notebook, headquartered in Tucson with the National Phenology Network, where students make detailed observations of natural cycles and can link these to weather, seasonal and climatic changes (http://www.usanpn.org/how-observe)
