Are you looking for a way to include citizen science in your teaching but not sure where to start? NEON’s Citizen Science Academy (CSA) is a new professional development resource designed to help educators successfully engage learners in key aspects of citizen science from making observations and measurements, to visualization, and more. NEON’s CSA offers facilitated, self-paced, online courses for formal, informal, and non-formal educators wishing to incorporate citizen science into their educational programs. Registration is now open for five Winter 2014 courses which are listed below along with short descriptions of each of the courses. We look forward to meeting you in one of our courses! The deadline for winter registration is February 7th.
Winter Term Offerings (February 4 – March 7, 2014)
– CSA 501a/b: Introduction to Project BudBurst for Educators
– CSA 502: Working with Project BudBurst Data in an Education Setting
– NEW! CSA 503: Project BudBurst Certification Program for Educators (ends April 4)
– NEW! CSA 520: Introduction to Citizen Science: Explorations in Educational Settings
NEW! CSA 503 Project BudBurst Certification Program for Educators
Have you completed both CSA 501 (or 551) and CSA 502? Are you an enthusiastic educator who would like to take your participation in Project BudBurst to a new level by engaging other citizen scientists? Take this practicum course and become a certified Project BudBurst Instructor! Due to the practicum aspect of this course, participation in this 60-day course will be limited to the first 10 qualified applicants, so be sure to register today!
NEW! CSA 520 Introduction to Citizen Science: Explorations in Educational Settings
Do you currently use Citizen Science in your teaching or outreach? Would you like to? In this course, you will become familiar with five successful Citizen Science projects especially suited to both formal and informal education. The projects you will learn about include: CoCoRaHS, Picture Post, Ebird, FrogWatch USA, and Project BudBurst.
CSA 501 Introduction to Project BudBurst for Educators
Looking for a way to engage your learners in the science of phenology? This professional development course will provide you with detailed information about Project BudBurst and how to participate, including how to select your plants and make observations, suggestions for structuring your learning environment, educational activities to engage your learners in making observations and analyzing data. You’ll also form a community with other educators from around the country.
CSA 502 Using Project BudBurst Data in an Educational Setting
You’ve engaged your learners with Project BudBurst and now you’d like to explore the data! This course overviews how to use Project BudBurst data in formal and informal learning environments. The course highlights an exciting new set of online data visualization tools developed by the National Geographic FieldScope program. It also covers plant adaptations to a changing climate, and links between Project BudBurst data and other large data sets. This course is offered in one section that considers both formal and informal educational objectives.
Courses are $35 and run approximately 1 month. Each course is limited to 50 participants, except for CSA503 with a maximum of 10. For those interested in teacher re-certification, all 30-day courses can be taken for 2 optional, graduate level continuing education credits from Colorado School of Mines. The fee for 2 optional credits is $90. Participants in CSA503 (60-days) are eligible to earn 3 optional credits.
Questions? Email us at CSAregistrar@neoninc.org
