ImagineIT Update Winter 2016

Nature Connections
As I continue to implement my ImagineIT project I have focused
on three areas. First, I am revising the survey I gave to my students
earlier in the year to develop a better understanding of their
environmental sensitivity. Second, I am using citizen science projects
in the classroom to maintain momentum when taking kids outside
presents a challenge. Third, I am linking the project to important
concepts in the science curriculum.
First, I was not entirely content with the depth of the survey I
used at the beginning of the year, and I looked for examples of
previous attempts to measure students environmental awareness and
attitudes towards nature. Specifically, I want to ensure that the
assumptions I am making about student attitudes towards the natural
Aspects of Environmental
Literacy
Ecological Knowledge

world are accurate. I learned about the

National Environmental Literacy
Assessment project and I have revised
my student survey to reflect a more

Verbal Commitment

comprehensive approach to the major

Environmental Sensitivity

aspects of environmental literacy. (See

Environmental Feelings

Figure 1) I am also harnessing the power

Issue Identification

of automation and using an Internet

Issue Analysis
Action Planning
Environmental Behavior
Figure 1: Survey Areas from NELA

based program (Socrative) to score the

survey I have developed.
Second, I am using two citizen science

projects with my students for this project. First, as an ongoing project

that also has the advantage of being a great project for students who
finish an assignment early, I am having students analyze photos
taken with camera traps for Chicago Wildlife Watch. This project is
also nice because it helps students become familiar with the types of
photos they will see one the camera trap is deployed at our school.
In addition to the photo project, students in my Zoology Club
spent part of the Presidents Day weekend conducting a survey of
birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count of the Cornell Lab of
Ornithology and the Audubon Society. Students made observations for
an hour and submitted their results to the longest running online
ornithology project and were able to compare their results with other
observations in real time.
The final thrust of my recent work on the project was been to
use the Friends of the Chicago River curriculum, Beyond the Banks, to
supplement my 8th grade chemistry unit. As we are learning about
mixtures, solutions, acids, and bases, I found water pollution to be a
natural fit. Students have been moved by the recent events in Flint,
Michigan, which also highlights the relationship between
environmental and social justice, and this project has been way to use
student interest and enthusiasm to learn about local connections to
the important issue of resource management.
In the project, students learn that small, everyday actions can
have a big impact on larger problems. One of the effects on my
science curriculum has been to add new laboratory lessons on
environmentally safe cleaning projects to my experiment repertoire.

The other benefit of this curriculum is to begin generating interest in

the upcoming spring trip to our Chicago River study site in the spring.
The final thing that I am doing for this part of the project is to write a
grant proposal to help cover the costs of the chemical water tests and
equipment that can be used as visits to the study site become an
ongoing part of my science curriculum.