Top 5 Apps that would be most useful in my classroom

iNaturalist app - Very helpful in identifying a wide variety of flora and fauna. Good interface.

Community Science.

Audubon app - Identify birds with picture or song. Call birds in with song. Community Sci-

ence.

Geocaching app - Great for following a trackable item that the class releases. Helps get kids/

family out into nature for more than a walk.

Birdathon app - life list or classroom list. Very well organized.

All Trails - Shows distance, elevation. Helps school and students find trails around them. Can

be used for PE extra credit or supplement PE and getting to nature. Kids can track and leave their

comments/recommendation on hikes. Give a safe place to talk about faceless comments online

and open to bigger discussions using nature.

Two Apps I will Integrate into My Classroom

iNaturalist - Having recently moved to Northern California, from the midwest, I am not familiar

with much of the flora and fauna of the area, especially along the coast. This will be app will be

one that I use in the field with my students. We will begin on campus by familiarizing ourselves

with the app by using it to identify flora and fauna around campus. Once proficient we will have

a field trip to Albion, PUC fields station on the coast. To use this app we will use our phones

(grades 7-10) while tide pooling. We can build a list together and it will aid in identification

while in the field on a limited time frame. When we get back to the classroom we can make a

master list and see if we agree on the information the we received in the field agrees with field

guides. Also having the phones on the field trip we will be able to document with pictures for a

culminating project.
Additionally, this app allows us to do a BioBlitz on the school grounds. This could be a whole

school event that we do during an open house so the kids and parents can explore the outdoor ar-

eas of the school. Also this will be a tool that their family can use when they are outdoors and

encourage them to get outdoors more often. It will let the school, students, and families be active

in community science.

Audubon app - Our lower grade students have been bird watching and making a classroom list.

The teacher says that the younger students, especially Kindergarten, have trouble focusing on

birds before they fly away. I would like to use this app along with a bluetooth speaker to bring

the birds in closer so the students can better observe them without the binoculars. Using the

bluetooth speaker also keeps the bird closer longer and will help the students to begin using the

binoculars. This will give them more time to spot the bird, bring up the binoculars and focus in

on the bird before it flies away. The students will also being their involvement in citizen science

early in life. The teacher and I could use this time to engage the students in metaphors about lis-

tening and seeing.