Signs of the Seasons: A Maine Phenology Program

Resources for Educators

Overview

The lessons below were developed to support formal and informal educators who are interested in linking Signs of the Seasons (SOS) data collection with classroom activities and student-driven investigations related to phenology and climate change.

Goals

The overall goals of these lessons are to:

• Introduce students to the concept of phenology and its importance to climate change science.
• Support the citizen science component of SOS (registering as SOS observers, making field observations, and entering data online) with student-driven investigations of phenology changes in their own communities.
• Provide educators with a local, relevant, and immediate context for teaching students about current and potential affects of climate change in Maine.
• Provide opportunities for students to practice the process of science (ask questions, conduct investigations, analyze data, and share their observations), while collecting useful data for climate change scientists.
• Help students understand the role that climate plays in ecological relationships.

Target Audiences

Middle and high school teachers and students.  Informal educators.

Instructional Time

Variable. The lessons could be included individually in other teaching units related to ecology, climate change, history, data literacy, or visual art. Or, they could be taught in sequence for an intensive unit focused on local effects of climate change. They vary from 20 minutes to several hours in length, and some work best when parsed out over several weeks or months.

Activity Sequence

Note: Some of the lessons below span all of the stages of an investigation, as they are written so they can be used individually or as part of a larger unit. Additional lessons will be posted as they are developed.

Introduction

• Interactive Phenology Wall Calendar: Students create a month-by-month phenology calendar on a chalkboard, whiteboard, or large sheets of paper hung up around the room.  Download the pdf.
• Plant and Animal Life Cycle Drawings: Instead of the traditional circle-shaped life cycle drawings that you see in many books, have your group/class use their species observations to help them draw a life cycle for one or more of their SOS species that is stretched out in a line and matched to the dates on a calendar year (estimate, based on guidebook information, if you didn’t observe all phenophases). Download the pdf.
• Species Life Cycle Match…or Mismatch? Use the life cycle calendar activity above to draw two species that depend on one another for food, pollination, reproduction, or habitat (such as the monarch caterpillar and common milkweed). Download the pdf.

Investigation

• Bird Feeder Notebook: Watch a feeder as a group/class and keep records of what you see. Compare your notebook with historical records for the same species in your area, if you can find any.  Download the pdf.
• Phenology Snapshots: Students compare phenology of the current season with historical phenology changes by comparing dated historical photos with present-day photos of the same locations. Download the pdf.
• Festival Dates: Comparing Celebrations of the Past and Present: Students visit the local library or a historical collection to look through source materials (newspapers, magazines, photo collections, etc.) to find dates and/or photos of annual festivals related to phenology (apple festivals, lilac festivals, maple sugar festivals, etc.)  Download the pdf. 

Data Analysis

• Mapping and Graphing Your Phenology Observations: Using dandelions, since they are numerous and easy to identify, students learn basic mapping and graphing skills, and practice making sense of the phenology data they have collected. Download the pdf.
• Monarch-Milkweed Ecology: Looking at the Numbers: Students learn to graph a small dataset about the timing of monarchs and milkweed appearance in Maine.  The exercise involves graphing comparisons between groups, making predictions, and thinking about variability, an important concept in statistics and data literacy.  Download the pdf.

Science Communication

• “Sister School” Phenology Calendar Exchange (or “Sister Program”)  Monitor Signs of the Seasons plants or animals on your school grounds or in a local park, and compare your observations with those of a school or youth program in another region of Maine. Download the pdf.

We welcome your feedback! Please contact us with any comments about SOS lesson plans that you have used, or suggestions for others you think might be useful for your students.