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Phenology is an excellent way to teach science, technology, and math standards such as inquiry, observation, creating relevant questions, making predictions, graphing and analyzing information, problem solving, conducting basic research, and communication of results.
Image credit:
Lili Gama
Resources for 9-12 Grade Classroom Teachers
Phenology and Nature’s Notebook can also be used to teach subjects other than science.
Phenology can be used to teach:
- English and Language Arts such as reading comprehension, writing, speaking and listening
- Social Studies such as American History, World History, Cultural Studies, and Geography
- Healthy Living and Physical Education
- Foreign and Native Languages including communication, culture, and comparative studies
- Arts such as music, theater, and visual arts
Where do I begin?
Adding a phenological monitoring program to your classroom is easy as long as your project is well-planned. Consider involving other like-minded teachers and staff in your project to make it a meaningful, multi-year experience.
If you can commit to establishing a site at your school for at least 2 years, take a look at our Nature's Notebook Planning Resources to help you get started.
Use Nature's Notebook observations to teach many science topics and prepare students for higher education by exploring critical thinking, careers, research, and scientific inquiry. Have students monitor a set of plants for a semester, or a year. Ask them to generate their own hypotheses, based on evidence of what they've seen, about seasonal and climatic change. If you and the students can continue monitoring for multiple years, ask students to return to the Nature's Notebook data, via visualization tools or excel download, and synthesize what they've seen and learned over the course of their high school career. We encourage people to create groups for monitoring at your school or campus, to which many participants can contribute their own observations.
Consider reaching out to community agencies and organizations and asking them to also monitor phenology. Many local and state government agencies have staff that will help with outreach projects and engage high school students in career choices. Even better if the theme can be phenology!
- Classroom Phenology Project Planning Worksheet (available as word doc)
- Lesson Planning Worksheet (available as word doc)
- Sample teachers workshop with editable powerpoint and activities
- Getting Started with Nature's Notebook in the Classroom
- Questions on how to get started? Contact our Education Coordinator.
- Have ideas or curriculum to share? Let us know and we can post it!
If you can't commit to a long-term monitoring program at your school, consider instead using some of our phenology activities and lesson plans to supplement your student learning. Search the table below for activities appropriate for high school learners.
Nature's Notebook and the Next Generation Science Standards
A long-term, Nature's Notebook phenology monitoring program in the classroom can help address the following Next Generation Science Standards Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI):
More Curriculum Ideas
The table below contains lesson plans and ideas for implementing Nature’s Notebook in Grades 9-12. Implementing phenology monitoring and Nature’s Notebook at the high school level allows students to engage with the content in an experiential way, provides opportunities to do community based projects through partnerships with local organizations, understand the implications of climate change, and engage with scientists performing data analysis.
View Nature's Notebook curriculum materials developed for 9th-12th grades in the table below.
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| Nature's Notebook Lesson Plan Template and Example |
Create your own lesson for K-12 or Higher Education. Utilize the 5E Lesson Planning methodology to enhance student learning. Above you will find a link to an NCO lesson plan as well as a template you can use to create your own activity. Use Nature's Notebook as a framework for your lesson. |
| USA-NPN Poster Template |
If you need to present a professional poster about Nature's Notebook, you can use this template designed by our NCO staff for your work. |
| Phenology Walk or Trail Proposal Form |
This Proposal Form may be useful when developing a Walk or Trail for a Group site at a K-12 school. It provides a place to document what you will do and is sharable with school stakeholders who may be interested in the program. Use this Planning Guide with the Local Phenology Program Planning Guide. |
| Nature's Notebook Program Planning Activity |
Before you begin your program planning activity, read through our guidance document to get some ideas for developing program goals and outcomes. The Program Planning Worksheet helps you to begin planning a long-term phenology monitoring program using Nature's Notebook in the field. A "program" is a series of activities designed to help you achieve a set of outcomes. You can include ideas for short (1 year or less), medium (1-3 years), or long (3-5 years or more) goals and desired outcomes. You should use this worksheet to help think through a relevant science or management question that your program will help to answer. What are the resources you have and what do you need to obtain in order to do the activities you'd like to do? How are you going to share this information with your community and involve as many people in the process to make it sustainable? Use either the Program Mapping Worksheet or the Logic Model Worksheet to help you further articulate your objectives. Then, utilize the Action Planning Worksheet to make a plan for achieving your short-term outcomes. We also offer this planning document in Spanish if you are working with Spanish audiences. USA-NPN Education Resource Number: 2017-003-C; 2014-007-CSP
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| Nature's Notebook Program Action Planning Template |
If you are a Local Phenology Leader with a monitoring program and want to keep track of the activities and outcomes for your project on an annual or long-term basis, consider using this Action Planning Template to document your tasks and track their progress. You'll find both a tabluar and a linear format on this webpage, both contain the same information. Use the one that works best for you. This template works especially well if you are working with groups of volunteers OR if you are a Phenology Trail Leader trying to manage the work at multiple sites in your community. We suggest hosting regularly scheduled meetings - quarterly or monthly - with selected site leads who are willing and able to record their work for you on this planning guide. That way you can manage the needs and outcomes of everyone involved. For help with implementation of this process email education@usanpn.org. |