In Memory of Ed Webster – Resources for Teaching and Learning About Mount Everest
This morning I opened Facebook and saw the news that fellow Mainer, mountaineer, and author Ed Webster had passed away on Thanksgiving morning. He’s probably most famous for pioneering a new route up Mount Everest in 1988 which he chronicled with words and fascinating imagery in Snow in the Kingdom. I met Ed a few […]
The Differences Between Crows and Ravens
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven gets read a lot in schools at this time of year. Why you should read Poe’s work is explained in one of the Halloween-themed TED-Ed lessons that I shared a few days ago. What’s not explained in those lessons is the difference between a raven and a crow. To answer […]
When You Give a Kid a Camera
Last year we gave our daughters (four and five years old) a couple of kid-friendly digital cameras. My daughters love taking pictures with their little cameras and take them on almost every hike, trip to the wildlife park, and just about every new place that we visit. My daughters little cameras store roughly 800 pictures […]
Five Google Earth Activities to Get Kids Interested in the Outdoors
In last week’s Week in Review I mentioned a new book titled Outdoor Kids in an Inside World. In the book Steven Rinella presents a lot of ideas for getting kids interested and involved in learning about nature. In the first chapter he presents a big list of ideas for things that you can do […]
The Mystery Pollinator!
This morning my local television news station broadcast a segment about hummingbirds and when to put out hummingbird feeders. We always put out a few hummingbird feeders every summer so I watched the segment with slightly more interest than some of the other filler stories they show every morning. One little aspect of the story […]
Spring is Here! Kind of…for Some of Us
Today is the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. And even there is still plenty of winter-like days to come, here in Maine we’re starting to have longer days, see and hear more birds around our house, and there’s plenty of mud being tracked into the house by my kids and dogs. Those […]
Winter Scavenger Hunts and Bingo
The sun is shining longer in the northern hemisphere these days. We’re really starting to notice here in Maine where the sun is still shining when we’re having supper. That means it’s slightly warmer in the afternoon and we have more time to play outside after school. In other words, it’s perfect for going on […]
All About American Buffalo
I read Steven Rinella’s American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon last week. It’s a fascinating book about the history of humans’ relationship with American buffalo (bison) in North America. The telling of the history is intermixed with Rinella’s own stories of finding a buffalo skull in Montana, visiting historic buffalo jumps, and hunting […]
Sherlock Bones – A Virtual Owl Pellet Dissection Activity
One of the great things about living where I do is that a walk in the woods is always just a few steps away. One of my favorite things about walking in the woods is finding all kinds of neat, natural things including dropped moose and deer antlers. While those are rare finds, I do […]
Birdcams for Spring Observations
We have robins and finches nesting in the hanging plants on our porch and in the eave of our garage. This morning when I let our dogs out at 4:45 all of the birds were still in their nests with their little heads poking up to see what all of the commotion was about. Yes, […]
The Wall of Birds – Hear the Calls of Birds and See Their Ranges
We’re starting to see some birds returning to feeders around our house. Before too long we’ll be waking up to the sounds of bird calls. Seeing the birds return reminded me of a great resource from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. That resource is the Wall of Birds. The Wall of Birds is a neat site […]
Acoustic Atlas – Sounds of the Wild West
Acoustic Atlas is a Montana State University Library project that features an ArcGIS Storymap. The Acoustic Atlas storymap is an audio and visual tour of Montana’s four ecosystems. As you scroll through Acoustic Atlas you will see read text and see pictures of the four ecosystems. While scrolling you will also hear the sounds of birds, […]
Try Your Hand at Bird Identification With the Audubon Bird App
We have a bunch of bird feeders hanging outside of house. My daughters love seeing the various birds that visit our feeders. I particularly enjoy seeing orioles come to one of our feeders. My daughters (2 and 3 years old) are curious about the names of many of the birds that come to the feeders. […]
Enjoy a National Park for Free This Weekend
Portions of this post originally appeared on one of my other blogs, Ed Tech Fitness. The U.S. National Parks Service is turning 103 years old on August 25th. In recognition of the Parks Service’s birthday admission is free to all parks on the 25th. Find the National Park that is closest to you through this […]
Find and Share National Parks Stories
A buffalo I saw while hiking in Grand Teton in 2006. Find Your Park is a U.S. National Parks service website. The purpose of the site is to help people discover the National Parks near them and the activities they can enjoy in the parks. To that end, Find Your Park offers tools for finding […]
Interactive Maps of Migrations and Changes of Seasons
Over the years I’ve featured Project Noah and the USA Phenology Network’s maps as platforms through which students can track the changes of seasons in North America. Recently, through the Maps Mania blog I learned about another good site that students can use to track the changes in seasons. That site is called Journey North. […]
Live Nature Webcams – Lambs, Eaglets, Piglets, and Calves, Oh My!
Image copyright: Richard Byrne Last night while I was working on a list of alternatives to YouTube I found myself distracted by the live nature webcam streams hosted on Explore.org. Explore.org has hosted live webcam streams for many years with the number of streams growing every year. This is a great time of year to […]
Nature Sound Map – Explore the Sounds of Nature
Nature Sound Map provides a neat way to explore the soundscape of the natural world. On the Nature Sound Map you will find placemarks containing recordings of nature. The recordings have been added to the project by professional sound recorders. Some of the recordings you will find feature the sounds of just one animal, the sounds […]
WWF Together – Revisiting a Favorite App
The World Wildlife Fund’s Together app has been one of my favorite iPad apps since the first day that I saw it more than five years ago. The app is beautifully designed to show the stories of endangered or threatened animals around the world. This morning it popped-up on my iPad as a featured app […]
Inspiration From an App That Didn’t Work as Expected
In preparation for a webinar that I am hosting on Thursday I tested a new app that is supposed to help users identify trees. The app is called FindATree. The concept behind the app is solid, but the execution is lacking. The app has you answer a few questions about the characteristics of the tree […]
Take a Look at This Year’s Explore.org Wildlife Cams
Explore.org offers a fantastic collection of live nature webcam feeds. In the gallery of live webcams you will find video feeds featuring owls in their nests, ospreys in their nests, and bald eagles in nests, and video feeds featuring puffins. Spring is almost here in the northern hemisphere and the bird videos feeds are the best […]
Flowers of North America
Project Noah is a globally collaborative project to which anyone can contribute. On Project Noah you can share pictures and stories of the plants and the animals that you observe in your neighborhood. Project Noah has a section titled Missions in which you can find projects that you can contribute to. The Missions ask people to make contributions […]
Squirrels!!! Why Are You Digging In My Lawn?
Along with the birds returning my yard, the squirrels and chipmunks are starting to dig around in my lawn. The same thing might be happening in your students’ yards too. SciShow Kids has a new video that explains why squirrels are dormant for much of the winter and why they dig in the spring and […]
Polar Bear “Street” View Lesson Plans
Polar Bears International offers a set of extensive lesson plans designed to help students learn about polar bears and their habitat. One of those lesson plans is called Street View and Polar Bears. In Street View and Polar Bears students use Google Maps to explore the geography, geology, and ecosystem of the tundra around Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. […]
The Sounds of Nature Around the World
Nature Sound Map provides a wonderful way to explore the soundscape of the natural world. On the Nature Sound Map you will find placemarks containing recordings of nature. The recordings have been added to the project by professional sound recordists. Some of the recordings you will find feature the sounds of just one animal, the […]
Learn About the Sounds of Nature on Wild Music
Wild Music is a fun and educational website on which students can learn about sounds commonly heard in nature. On Wild Music students can listen to the sounds of nature and explore what creates those sounds. Some of the activities students will find include a game of animal audio memory in which students hear sounds […]
A Good App and A Good Site for Learning About Endangered Animals
WWF Together is a beautiful iPad app and Android app that features interactive stories about endangered animals around the world. Each of the interactive stories includes beautiful images and videos, facts about the animals and their habitats, and the threats to each of the animals. Some of the animals currently featured in the app are pandas, marine […]
Live Video of Owls, Ospreys, and More
Explore.org offers the largest collection of live nature webcams on the web. In the gallery of live webcams you will find video feeds featuring owls in their nests, ospreys in their nests, and bald eagles in nests, and video feeds featuring puffins. As it is spring in the northern hemisphere, the bird videos feeds are […]
Plum’s Creaturizer – A Neat AR App to Get Kids Exploring Outdoors
Creaturizer from PBS Kids is a free iOS and Android app that lets students create fun cartoon creatures then place them into outdoor settings through the use of augmented reality. In the app students create cartoon creatures by swiping and tapping on the features they want their creatures to have (students can have multiple creature […]
All About American Bison
There is a chilling scene in Dances With Wolves in which Kevin Costner’s character and the Lakota Indians come over a hill to see hundreds of bison carcasses left to rot on the plains. I have, on occasion, shown that scene to students. It’s a good illustration of what Americans did to the bison herds […]
How Sea Turtles Find Their Way Home
A few years ago I had the privilege to witness sea turtles nesting in Costa Rica. Since then I have been fascinated by how they are able to find their way back to their birthplaces years later. So when It’s Okay To Be Smart published a video about sea turtles, I stopped what I was […]
21 TED-Ed Lessons About Animals
Writing yesterday’s post about how animals see in the dark inspired me to look through the TED-Ed catalog for more interesting lessons about animals. As I browsed through the catalog I found lessons about how dogs “see” with their noses, why blue whales are so big, how ant colonies work, and eighteen other interesting lessons […]
Wild Music – Songs and Sounds of Wildlife
Wild Music is a fun and educational website on which students can learn about sounds commonly heard in nature. On Wild Music students can listen to the sounds of nature and explore what creates those sounds. Some of the activities students will find include a game of animal audio memory in which students hear sounds […]
Nearly 100 TED-Ed Lessons About Nature
In recent weeks I have featured some neat National Geographic videos about cool things in nature like birds that eat dirt and animal migrations in Yellowstone. While those videos are great, they are a bit short. For longer lessons about interesting things in nature, take a look at the TED-ED playlist called Awesome Nature. 96 […]
A Lesson on Bears and Punnett Squares
A recent conversation with a friend about black bears in our neighborhood (neighborhood is a relative term as I live on a six acre woodlot) reminded me about a neat National Geographic article that I read about five years ago. Back then National Geographic magazine had a cover story about the “Spirit Bears” of British Columbia. […]
Wall of Birds – Hear the Calls of Birds and See Their Ranges
Wall of Birds is a new site published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The Wall of Birds features a mural of 243 hand-painted birds. The mural’s backdrop is a map of the world. You can zoom and pan across the mural to see all of the birds. Clicking on a bird will open a […]