Using NatureWatch in Schools

"Why don't you use NatureWatch?" they said.
"It'll be fun!" they said.
"Kids always behave better when they can get outside," they said.
"Everyone will learn something, even you," they said.

So you learnt that when you sent 30 kids outside with the class iPads to photograph animals and plants, you got a few blurry and backlit trees, far too many photos of the caretaker disposing of some kind of rodent, and only that one kid who went missing for three hours took photos which achieved research grade.

Here are some ways to have a better time with NatureWatch:

1. Start by looking, to enjoy the site and its purpose. I had my students share their favourite new observations from the site a few times each week before anyone took a photograph. We learnt a lot through the students' curiosity about the pictures they found, and we talked about what makes a great observation, too.
2. Share the bad as well as the good. There are many pages of observations which haven't been fully identified. Look through some. Talk about what went wrong with these photographs, and how to avoid making the same mistakes.
3. Do some hands on work to explore the similarities and differences of living things. Have students sort sea shells or pieces of plants into categories. Talk about which details the students have paid attention to as they sorted. How did they help? How could you photograph these details clearly for NatureWatch? Do the resulting categories seem similar to families of living things?
4. Use lots of additional resources to helps students identify organisms for themselves. I'm a fan of this tool for identifying New Zealand birds, for example.
5. Have a focus question to help tie different ideas about the living world together. We used, "How can we know what lives near us, and whether it has value?"
6. Find inspiring role models who are learning about living things. If you don't know one, look through some of the journals on the site, and share highlights with students. Here is a post by @tangatawhenua which sums up what can be learnt and has inspired some of my students and their families. I enjoyed reading the whole journal.
7. Learn associated skills, like photography. Consider having some grown-up photographers help to record key details students have chosen, especially if the students are young, or a sophisticated camera is the best tool for the job.
8. If you need more info, try the helpful help files, or the iNaturalist Teacher's Guide.

Below are some species I have enjoyed discussing with my class, because they are beautiful, because they belong here, or because they don't: less ↑