An educator's audience....

As an educator by training it is so difficult for me to work independently!  I've always relied on input and feedback from my audience to shape the next steps.  Nowadays there are so many neat digital tools, such as this blog, that can play an important role in education, especially for folks like me who's audience is not just the local groups I work with but the whole United States.

Luckily, though, I have some great folks in our Tucson community who are interested in phenology and in learning more about the natural world through Nature's Notebook.  This gives me a place to test new ideas and get feedback on the materials I'll share with others who are interested in adding a citizen science program like Nature's Notebook to their repertoire. 

S. Schaffer

Most recently I've taught local groups of Master Gardeners about phenology and engaged them in collecting data for Nature's Notebook at their demonstration gardens.  The Master Gardener program is a nationwide group of university-trained volunteers who serve as community educators and are able to answer locally-focused gardening questions.  Check it out: http://www.extension.org/mastergardener. Phenology is very important to gardening, including information about when to plant, what to plant that will grow in your area, how to manage pests in your garden, when things bloom, how to attract pollinators, and so much more.  Yet many people don't realize what they are already paying attention to is phenology! 

This is the second year I've taught the class - last year I was not explicit about how phenology informs almost all of the Master Gardener topics.  The response I received was mostly that folks did not understand what phenology and Nature's Notebook had to do with gardening at all and that it was a waste of time.  This year, I took the time to rework the content and talk more about ecology, climate zones, planting guides, botany, and phenology applications for each Master Gardener topic.  I also folded in information about how climate informs all of those things.  The response was much better - people were excited and engaged with the natural world and understood fully that what they observe in the garden is phenology. The classes are also collecting data for Nature's Notebook and will be developing their own garden calendars for the demonstration gardens from the information they collect over time. After a few years we will have enough data to see trends and averages.

All of this would have been more difficult to determine if I didn't have an audience to test it on!  I certainly rely on feedback from the participants and other educators to make the best lessons I can.  I'm hoping that folks who read this blog and participate in citizen science programs, like Nature's Notebook, will also offer ideas and suggestions about things that work for them.  If you've got any phenology activities that you'd like to share, including those that do not use Nature's Notebook, please email them to me and I will post them on our Educator's Clearinghouse for others to use.  The best ideas are often crowd sourced in some way.