Category: Biodiversity & Wildlife
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Native vs. Invasive Species: How Restoration Projects Teach Research Skills and Ecological Judgment
Restoration · Research · Ecological Judgment Pull up the wrong plant and you might destroy something the local ecosystem depends on; leave the wrong one and it might choke out everything around it. Deciding which plants belong in a landscape — and which are aggressive invaders that should go — is a genuinely hard question,…
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Citizen Science in the Classroom: How Students Contribute Real Wildlife Data to Global Research
Real Data · Real Research · Real Impact Most school science asks students to re-discover what is already known — to repeat an experiment whose answer is in the back of the book. Citizen science flips that script. It lets students collect real data that real researchers actually use, contributing to genuine scientific studies about…
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Building Pollinator Gardens: How Supporting Bees and Butterflies Teaches Ecology and Responsibility
Ecology · Stewardship · Hands-On Plant the right flowers, and within weeks the bees, butterflies, and hoverflies arrive — turning a bare patch of ground into a buzzing, fluttering ecosystem the whole school can watch. A pollinator garden does something rare: it lets students take direct, visible responsibility for wildlife and see their care rewarded…
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The Schoolyard Biodiversity Survey: How Counting Species Teaches Scientific Observation and Data Collection
Field Notebook · Entry No. 13 There is more life in an ordinary schoolyard than almost anyone suspects — dozens of plant species in a strip of “weeds,” insects in every crack, birds overhead, fungi underfoot. A biodiversity survey, often called a BioBlitz, sends students out to find and count it all, transforming a patch…