Seasons of Change

• Paper

• Pens/pencils

• Digital cameras/smart phones

• Computer access

• GPS/smart phone

• Project BudBurst data sheets

Have your students explore the Project BudBurst website. (Project BudBurst was started by botanists and ecologists who are interested in the effects of climate change.)

Ask your students to answer the fallowing questions after exploring the website:

• Can you figure out what question(s) these scientists are asking through Project BudBurst?
• Why do they need citizen scientists to help gather the data needed to answer the question(s)?
• How will the protocols and methods answer them question(s)?

1. Have your students pick a 5-6 spots that they found during the Scavenger Hunt that seemed like they had a good number of plants.
2. Break them into groups, and each group creates a field guide to the plants that are in one spot.
   • You can use the Project BudBurst Mystery Plant Identification activity, the Using a Key to Classify Plants activity, or the Field Guide to the Biodiversity of your Schoolyard activity as references and guides.
   • If your students need help identifying some of the plants, you can use existing field guides or you can take some good photos and post them on iNaturalist to see if someone can assist you with the ID, or you could try out the LeafSnap app to help with identification of trees.

Take some data about your sites!

Record site location information (e.g. latitude / longitude) and a site description (e.g., irrigation regime, shading, site type).

• What makes your sites different?
• What is similar among your sites?

After collecting data, how do scientist know if they’ve answered their question? They need to examine and analyze their data to determine the results.

1. A day or so after uploading your students data, have yours students check the Data Map at Project BudBurst.
   • Can they find their observations?
   • Are there lots of observations or just a few from their state this year?
   • How is their data important if there are many observations from your state?
   • How are they important if there are few observations from your state?
2. Then look at all the data collected by your class. What questions do you think you can answer by looking at your class data?
3. Pick a question and examine the data to see if you can answer it. Possible questions include:
   • Is there a difference in phenological timing among different species of plants?
   • Is there a difference in phenological timing of the same species located in different places?
4. The easiest way to examine the data may be to make a graph so you can visualize them, or to put the data in a logical order that will help you see trends.
5. Allow your students to think about the questions scientists are trying to answer through Project BudBurst.
   • Do you think just the data from your class could answer that question? Why or why not?
6. Project BudBurst allows you to see in various ways and download all the data uploaded to their project. With your class, decide on some Project BudBurst ways to examine your data. See if they can detect phenological differences between or among years.
   • Depending on your timeframe and student skill level, you could just work with your class’ data. Looking at Project BudBurst data could be an extension activity for higher-level (high school) classes or interested students.

Spread the Word

Ask your students:

• What is the most interesting or important thing you discovered from the data you collected and/or analyzed?
• Who in your community should know about it?

If your students are interested in sharing their findings, follow the steps in Modern Media Blitz to share their stories to create a social media campaign to share their results.

Common Core: English Language Arts Anchor Standards

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.1 Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.2 Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

Students will peruse the Project BudBurst website to determine the questions being answered through the project. To do so, they will need to think critically about the information being presented and make inferences about the overall focus of Project BudBurst, the research interests of the scientists involved, and what types of questions can be answered through the data being provided by the citizen scientists.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.7 Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

Students will need to take information presented textually via the Project BudBurst website and trends and patterns found in the data they’ve collected to make logical conclusions.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.4 Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

As part of forming logical arguments based on Project BudBurst data, students will need to be able to support their claims based on evidence. To communicate their conclusions to a wider audience, they will need to present information and results coherently and in a manner that builds logically to their conclusions.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.5 Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.

Depending on how students end up communicating their conclusions, they may use the internet to produce a social media campaign, or they may design a poster or PowerPoint presentation to present their results. Regardless of format, creating visually compelling displays of their data will be important in clear communication.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.L.1 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.L.2 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Communication in many forms is a key part of this project. Students will have ample opportunity to work on their writing and speaking skills, and with constructive feedback from their instructor(s) and peers, will learn and improve.

Standards for Mathematical Practice

• CCSS.Math.Practice.MP1 Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

• CCSS.Math.Practice.MP6 Attend to precision.

Through participating in Project BudBurst, students will need to determine how their data are answering the question(s) (problems) being posed by the scientists. While their data will likely not answer (solve) the question, students will understand how their data, combined with data collected by the larger community of citizen scientists, will be used by scientists to try to address the question(s). Because they are contributing to a real research project, data provided by students will need to be accurate, encouraging careful collection and precision.

• CCSS.Math.Practice.MP2 Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
• CCSS.Math.Practice.MP3 Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

Students will use their own or other data from Project BudBurst to try to answer their questions. Examining data to understand how they could potentially answer a question will require critical thinking and both abstract and quantitative reasoning. Once they think they can answer their question, students will need to create logical arguments that support their conclusions.

• CCSS.Math.Practice.MP5 Use appropriate tools strategically.

To examining their Project BudBurst data to answer a question, students will need to determine what tools will best help them visualize results: spreadsheets, pie charts, bar graphs, etc.