Do you know about the Corvid family of birds? What about phenophases? Springtime is in the air and it’s a good time to engage students of all ages in some great citizen science projects.  Project BudBurst is an exemplary citizen scientist program that engages the public in making careful observations of phenophases:  first leafing, first flower, first fruit ripening, etc. of trees, shrubs, flowers and grasses in local areas. You can also share your photos on Flickr, join scientists on the BudBurst science blogs, explore the field guides, and much  more. There are projects for students, for educators, and special projects for everyone.  Also check out the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s extensive projects, including:

Get outdoors and get active!

While we are all glued to the television this week to watch the exciting outcomes of Winter Olympics competition, it’s also a great opportunity to explore the science behind the sports and winter weather.  Collections from NSDL and from the National Science Foundation can help you do just that. The National Science Foundation and NBC Learn have collaborated to produce Science of the Olympic Winter Games, a 16-part video series that explores the science behind individual Olympic events, including downhill and aerial skiing, speed skating and figure skating, curling and hockey, and ski jumping, bobsledding and snowboarding. NSDL’s Science of Winter collection offers interactives, videos, and lesson plans on a variety of winter and winter sports phenomena:

• Ripples on icicles  (high school, lower undergrad, general)
• The Effect of Gravity on Motion (luge) - (K12, lower undergrad, general)
• The Physics Classroom: Energy Transformation for Downhill Skiing (K12, lower undergrad, general)
  
• A Winter’s Tale  (K-12)
• Winter Olympics Physiology & Psychology (K12, lower undergrad, general)
• The Science of Hockey (general)

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WGBH’s Teachers’ Domain - a goldmine of multimedia resources for K12 education - now has added value for middle school and high school educators and students, with its recently released Biotechnology Digital Media Collection. If you teach genetics, DNA, gene cloning, or other biotech topics, and are looking for ways to integrate high quality digital media in your lessons or studies, this is your go-to source.  These resources help to show the tools and techniques used to develop new biotechnology applications and products, incorporating aspects of chemistry, genetics, cell biology; while mapping to existing curriculum standards. With Flash interactives and videos demonstrating how techniques are performed and showing how biotechnology professionals use them, science careers can be sparked and students can gain critical understandings of complex processes. The Biotechnology collection covers: Applications, Careers, Concepts, Tools and Techniques, and a Lesson Plan on Using Biotechnology to Detect and Treat Disease. Update: You can learn more about the Biotech Collection by participating in the NSDL/NSTA Web Seminar on Wednesday February 17:  Biotechnology: New Tools and Resources for the STEM Career Pipeline from WGBH Teachers’ Domain.

The Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE)  has updated and released a new version of the DLESE Earth Science Literacy Maps. The Maps are a great tool to aid the teaching and learning of Earth system science. They show relationships between concepts, how concepts at a given level connect with and emerge from concepts at prior levels, and link to related National Science Education standards information - all focused on Earth science concepts alone.  (Both DLESE Earth Science Literacy Maps and NSDL Science Literacy Maps are based on the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS) Benchmarks for Science Literacy, and utilize the NSDL Strand Map Service, an NSDL project).

In addition to the January 12, 2010 magnitude 7.0 earthquake that has devastated Haiti and focused worldwide action on relief efforts, the US Geological Survey reported that a magnitude 5.6 earthquake also struck eastern Venezuala on Friday, January 15, 2010. Teachers can utilize the NSDL Science Literacy Map on plate tectonics to browse a variety of resources including interactives and multimedia, and other NSDL collections and resources, for teaching and learning about these phenomena:

• Essential Science for Teachers: Earth and Space Science - video from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics collection (K-12)
• Musical Plates - classroom activity that encourages use of real-time data (ages 11-18)
• Plate Tectonics: Moving Middle School Science - NSDL Middle School Portal’s Science Resource guide on plate tectonics
• Earthquakes often occur along the boundaries  -  AAAS’ Educational Benchmarks Collection on earthquakes and plate tectonics (high school)
• Teachable Moments site from the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) - with updates on recent seismic activity, with supporting downloadable presentations, animations, visualizations (middle and high school, informal)
• Earthquakes, lesson plan with associated video and flash interactives, from Teachers’ Domain (middle and high school)
• DLESE earthquake resources: lessons, activities, interactives (multiple ed levels) from the Digital Library for Earth System Education
• Earth Exploration Toolbook, from the Science Education Resource Center  at Carleton College, with multiple chapters for exploration of solid earth phenomena employing use of data; includes background information, learning goals, instructional strategies and more (high school and undergraduate)

Teaching science by discussing issues and current events is a great way to motivate your students to learn. Food-bourne illness, genetic engineering, environmental change—all of these provide a real-life context to help students understand science concepts. Where can I learn more about resources and strategies to do this effectively? Find out in our next web seminar in the NSDL/NSTA Web Seminar Series, Thinking Like a Scientist: Teaching With Current Science Issues on Tuesday, January 12th at 6:00pm Eastern Time. This web seminar is free and available to anyone interested. We’ll look at resources from Actionbioscience that lay out easy-to-use resources, activities, as well as national science standards correlations to resources in the collection. Register Today!