Learning Activity 6: Exploring Websites

Citizen Science (ELA and Math Integration)

 Citizen Science is a government website designed to allow American citizens to help
address societal needs and make gains in science and technology through
crowdsourcing.
 With Citizen Science, the public volunteers to participate in scientific projects that
address real-world issues.
 After exploring this website, I am not much of a fan of it as an educational resource for
the grade level I teach (2nd grade). I found the site somewhat difficult to navigate and
that may be the reason that I am not able to see all its benefits.
 Of the three sections on the Citizen Science Toolkit, I found the “Getting Started” and
“Resource Library” to be the most useful.
 I struggled to find ways to use this site with my second graders, but I was able to think
of ways that I could have possibly used Citizen Science when I taught fifth grade.
 If I still taught fifth grade, I would use Citizen Science for a cumulative assessment at the
end of a science unit, while also using it to teach and practice writing skills.
- At the end of a science unit, I could allow students to work in groups and have them
design their own Citizen Science project based on whatever science standard we
were working on. I could also give students autonomy to pick their own science topic
to guide their project designs.
- Utilizing the website in this way would integrate ELA standards because students
would need to use their research and writing skills while designing the project. I
would need to walk them through the five steps laid out in the “Getting Started”
section, so students were able to successfully design their projects.
- The Resource Library also had some helpful resources that could help students in
designing their projects. For example, there was a link to an article called, “5 Tips for
Writing a Great Survey”. This resource could be used to help students write the
survey for their projects.
- This assignment would also provide an opportunity to integrate math because it
incorporates measurement and data concepts when students conduct their surveys
and interpret their data.

Journey North (Social Studies and Math Integration)

 Journey North is a website that focuses on creating a space for people to contribute
observational data aimed at helping to conserve and protect migrating species from
habitat loss caused by climate change.
 The site encourages U.S. citizens to help track wildlife migration and seasonal change to
develop and grow scientific understanding and environmental awareness.
 I like the concept behind this website, but I am not sure how much I like the website
itself because I found it a little challenging to navigate.
 After exploring this Journey North, I was able to think of some ways that I would be able
to use the site with my second graders.
  I could use Journey North when I am teaching patterns of the sun by showing students
the Daylight map. Utilizing this map would also allow me to integrate math standards
because students could interpret data and create bar or picture graphs.
 This website could also be used when I teach students about lifecycles, specifically when
we cover the life cycle of a butterfly. I liked that the site had several maps dedicated to
sightings of the monarch butterfly at different stages of its life cycle. This would also be
another opportunity for math integration because students would be able to practice
graphing and data skills. Students could create a graph that shows which month of the
year had the most sightings or a graph showing which states reported the most
sightings.
 Using Journey North to enhance science instruction could also create an opportunity for
social studies integration. Most of the Georgia Standards of Excellence social studies
standards for second grade are focused on Georgia so I feel like I am limited in how I can
use the site, but I think it could be useful when I am teaching the Georgia regions. When
we analyze the maps, I would zoom in and have students focus their attention on
Georgia. If we were tracking the monarch butterflies, I would ask students to identify
which region had the most sightings.
- Based on what they know about each region, I would ask them why they think that
region had the most sightings. This social studies integration is simple and could also
be done with other maps on the Journey North website.

The Globe Program (Math Integration)

 GLOBE is an international science and education program that focuses on providing
students and the public with opportunities to build on the existing understandings of
Earth and the global environment.
 The part of the website that I found to be most useful was the Elementary Globe page.
Elementary Globe has modules created for students in grades kindergarten – 4 th that
focus on different aspects of Earth science.
 I like that the modules in Elementary Globe use a storybook approach with science-
based fictional narratives to engage students in scientific concepts. This is especially
effective for students in the lower grades. After exploring all the other websites listed in
Learning Activity 6, I found this website to be the most useful for my second graders.
 When I explored the GLOBE Data, I honestly found it very hard to think of ways to utilize
it with my second graders.
 GLOBE Data could be used when I teach my students about weather and changes in the
environment, but I found the data visualization to be extremely confusing, even after
watching the demonstration video.
 This section of the website could be useful if you teach fourth-grade math and science.
When students are learning about weather patterns and collecting weather data,
GLOBE’s visualization system could be an interesting way to engage students.
- When using the visualization system, the teacher could set the protocols to focus on
clouds and cloud types, and students could analyze and graph the data that is
 generated. The same could be done with different protocols like precipitation and
relative humidity.

Zooniverse (Social Studies and Language Arts Integration)

 Zooniverse is a site where people design and conduct research projects with the help of
volunteers.
 I found the easiest way to navigate Zooniverse was to view all the research projects.
When you view all of the research projects, they are divided into active projects, paused
projects, and finished projects. In each section, the projects are further categorized by
discipline. Once I got the hang of it, I found this website to be one of the easier sites
listed in Learning Activity 6 to navigate. Even though it was easier to navigate, I still
found it challenging to find realistic ways to use it as an instructional resource or
learning tool for the grade level that I teach. I found a couple of projects that focus on
concepts that are covered by second-grade science standards like pollination, but I had
a hard time thinking of ways to integrate social studies and language arts.
 I was, however, able to find ways that the site could have been useful when I taught
fifth grade.
- I could have utilized Zooniverse when I was teaching my fifth graders about cells
with the “Etch-A-Cell ER” research project. This research project would have been an
engaging tool to use during that unit. I could have integrated language arts by having
students write an informative essay about what they learned from the research
project.
- This site would have been very useful for fifth-grade social studies, especially when I
was teaching World War I and World War II. Zooniverse had several research
projects (some paused or finished) focused on different aspects of both wars. For
example, I found a finished research project called “The American Soldier” that
collected written accounts of World War II from soldiers that experienced it
firsthand. Not only would this be a powerful tool for social studies instruction, but it
would also allow for language arts integration because it focuses on
primary/secondary sources and firsthand/secondhand accounts.
- Another useful research project I found that allows for social studies and language
arts integration in fifth grade is called “Every Name Counts”. This project focuses on
creating an archive of documents about the victims and survivors of Nazism. This
would have been a powerful collection of primary sources to show my students
when I was teaching them about the Holocaust.