Students visit the local library or a historical collection to look through source materials (newspapers, magazines, photo collections, etc.) to find dates and/or photos of annual festivals related to phenology (apple festivals, lilac festivals, maple sugar festivals, etc.). Created by Signs of the Seasons: A Maine Phenology Program.
Watch a feeder as a group/class and keep records of what you see. Compare your notebook with historical records for the same species in your area, if you can find any. Created by Signs of the Seasons: A Maine Phenology Program.
Students learn to graph a small dataset about the timing of monarchs and milkweed appearance in Maine. The exercise involves graphing comparisons between groups, making predictions, and thinking about variability, an important concept in statistics and data literacy. Created by Signs of the Seasons: A Maine Phenology Program.
Students create a month-by-month phenology calendar on a chalkboard, whiteboard, or large sheets of paper hung up around the room. Created by Signs of the Seasons: A Maine Phenology Project.
Monitor Signs of the Seasons plants or animals on your school grounds or in a local park, and compare your observations with those of a school or youth program in another region of Maine. Created by Signs of the Seasons: A Maine Phenology Program.
Students compare phenology of the current season with historical phenology changes by comparing dated historical photos with present-day photos of the same locations. Created by Signs of the Seasons: A Maine Phenology Program.
Instead of the traditional circle-shaped life cycle drawings that you see in many books, have your group/class use their species observations to help them draw a life cycle for one or more of their SOS species that is stretched out in a line and matched to the dates on a calendar year. Created by Signs of the Seasons: A Maine Phenology Program.
Lesson plan written and created by GK-12 Fellows of Michigan State University Liz Schultheis and Dustin Kincaid, 2012.
Use the Signs of the Seasons life cycle calendar activity to draw two species that depend on one another for food, pollination, reproduction, or habitat (such as the monarch caterpillar and common milkweed). Created by Signs of the Seasons: A Maine Phenology Program.
Beagle is an online biodiversity project that is based in Europe. Contains a detailed program planning guide that could also inspire non-european classrooms.