Think Like a Citizen Scientist: Virtual Meeting No. 2

We had our second virtual meeting of the year, and continued working on Think Like a Citizen Scientist.   We also played a Bingo game with Leave No Trace to being working on our Eco badges. 

Since the last meeting I distributed Memory Books and when I did so I provided the handouts for this meeting.  I also put them online in case anyone lost them or needed another copy.  You can find them here.

To prepare for the meeting girls were asked to view the SciStarter site and to pick and do a Citizen Science project.  I told the parents that iNaturalist was dead simple and that's the one everyone chose.  The packet had a short report for the girls to do.  With iNaturalist, you download the app and take pictures of living things (or you can upload photos already on your phone or your Google account).  The app grabs your metadata as far as the time and place of the photo.  It asks you to identify what you photographed and offers suggestions.  It asks if the item was wild or cultivated.  You then upload it.  If you can't identify it, chances are someone else will.  Other people or groups can add your photo to their collection.  "Louisiana Biodiversity" grabs my photos.


I also asked the girls to make themselves a unique bingo card with the LNT trace terms (see handouts). Finally, I asked them to wear a hat.

After we said the GS promise I talked about tally marks being a good way to take notes when things have common characteristics.  I had them write down the numbers 1-5.  Then I asked them to hold up any number of fingers they wanted with the hand that they don't use for writing.  I asked them to look at each girl and put a tally mark next to the number that said how many fingers she had.  Then we did it again with each girl saying how many fingers she held up.  I pointed out that tally marks are easy to make.

Next I had them put on their hats.  First I asked each girl to find a hat on one of her sister scouts and describe it.  I asked the Juniors to write two sentences. I asked the Brownies to fill in some blanks on a form.  Then we tried to guess which hat they were describing.  I guess it went ok.  Finally I asked the girls to classify the hats--the Brownies put tally marks on my classifications and the Juniors had to come up with their own categories.  That kind of fell flat.

Then we moved on to Leave No Trace Bingo.  I briefly talked about LNT.  As we played Bingo, after each call I asked the girls to vote thumbs up or thumbs down on the item.  Leaving trash is a big thumbs down. 

At the end of the meeting we marked our memory books showing that we had done a requirement for the Eco badges. 

I hope we can meet in person soon.  This really isn't my best medium.  Between crowded screens and cranky internet connections I just don't get much interaction out of the girls and I know that no one really wants to sit and listen to me talk for an hour--nor do I want to do so. 

For homework I asked them to read the TAP section of GSUSA's packet for the Journey.  It's free and while it is designed for home use, I think it is a good guide to pass out, and to review, especially the part about the TAP. 

At our next meeting we are going to pick and plan a TAP.  Maybe I'll get lucky and council will let us meet in person.  I'll also look through the badge requirements and see if I can find something I think will work well online so we can start another badge.