Cross context educators have launched a wildlife data literacy project that tracks wildlife and human activity in various locations. The project aims to enhance data literacy, foster connections with nature, and strengthen community ties.
The Squam Lakes CLE came together around their shared value of showing youth that they can impact the environment within their community as well as the desire to encourage youth and their families to continue to work toward bettering these spaces for wildlife and people. One of the projects that emerged from these values is a data literacy project tracking local wildlife!
In response to teacher reports that interpreting data and being able to create and read charts & graphs is a challenge for their students, Mirka Zapletal (Newfound Lake Region Association), Jess Rominger (Newfound Memorial Middle School) and Patty Hayward (Minot-Sleeper Library) came together to design a project working with multiple schools & sites in the NASD/Newfound Watershed to collect data about wildlife & human use of different locations with the hope that youth collecting their own local data will increase relevance and engagement. In this project, youth will help set up game cameras in a variety of locations including schools, behind the Library, and a conservation area to record the presence of different wildlife species and people. Some camera images will be classified by students in classrooms while others will be available out of school hours at the library for interested youth. The data collected will be used in the classroom for graphing and data interpretation activities that compare locations for patterns and surprises. This in-class work will be supported by Mirka Zapletal and at the end of the project students will share a presentation of their findings to the Newfound community at the Minot-Sleeper Library.
This project gives students direct, personal experience with collecting and understanding data to help develop data literacy at the same time that they learn more about their surrounding environments and take a leadership role in helping the community learn. The intended outcomes are greater familiarity and ease with using and interpreting data, expanded use of the library in terms of how it connects with youth and the community, and stronger relationships between participants and nature in the Newfound Watershed.
This project is being piloted now (Fall 2024). Keep an eye out for an update to see how it goes!