Grants Awarded

Chromebooks

A group of scientists is hard at work, collecting and analyzing data on the local growing season. When do flowering plants bloom? When do trees bud out and lose their leaves? How does the timing of these events affect pollinators and people? To answer their questions, the scientists record traditional data—measuring plant height or counting buds—but also take photographs to document plant “phenophases.” All in a day’s work, and nothing unusual…until you realize that these scientists are elementary school students.

 

The student scientists are participating in “Show and Tell,” an effort to get students excited about science through authentic research. The greatest challenge? Making sense of the data and communicating results. The solution? An exhibit that uses photographs as well as graphs to “show and tell” the story of a changing growing season.

 

In “Show and Tell” fourth-grade and fifth-grade students collect, analyze, and share data to answer the question: “Is the growing season changing?” Students will:

 

  1. Collect data on the timing of life cycle events for herbaceous plants and deciduous trees in the schoolyard (measure, count and photograph).

 

  1. Use data from the Harvard Forest Schoolyard Ecology Program and photographs from the University of New Hampshire Phenocam Network to contextualize and make sense of their schoolyard data.

 

  1. Host an exhibit that includes photographs and graphs to teach others about the impact of a changing growing season on local ecosystems.

 

This grant request funded a set of 12 Chrome tablets that students will use to take photographs of their plants and trees.

 

Students work with outside experts (Dr. Betsy Colburn, ecologist at Harvard Forest and Rebecca

Cinclair, professional photographer at Rebecca Cinclair Photography) to identify what the data and

photographs show about the length of the growing season.

 

With the help of the same outside experts, students explore ways to visualize data and discuss which

methods are most effective. Students then apply what they have learned about photography and

data visualization to create an exhibit that accurately represents the data and explains changes in the

growing season.

 

–Tiffany Davis, Digital Learning Coach, J.R. Briggs Elementary School and Westminster Elementary Sch

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