Experience NEON's Citizen Science Academy Online

Are you looking for a way to include citizen science in your teaching? NEON's Citizen Science Academy (CSA) is a professional development resource designed to help educators successfully engage learners in key aspects of citizen science, from making observations and measurements to visualization and more. NEON's CSA offers facilitated, self-paced, online courses for formal, informal, and non-formal educators wishing to incorporate citizen science into their educational programs. Registration is now open for the Fall 2014 term. We look forward to meeting you in one of our courses!

Fall Term (Oct 7 – Nov 7) offerings:

• CSA 501a/b: Introduction to Project BudBurst for Educators
• CSA 502: Working with Project BudBurst Data in an Education Setting
• CSA 503: Project BudBurst Certification Program for Educators
• NEW! CSA 520: Introduction to Citizen Science: Explorations in Educational Settings

Do you currently use Citizen Science in your teaching or outreach? Would you like to? In this course, you will become familiar with five successful Citizen Science projects especially suited to both formal and informal education. The projects you will learn about include: CoCoRaHS, Picture Post, Ebird, FrogWatch USA, and Project BudBurst.

CSA 501 Introduction to Project BudBurst for Educators 

Looking for a way to engage your learners in the science of phenology? This professional development course will provide you with detailed information about Project BudBurst and how to participate, including how to select your plants and make observations, suggestions for structuring your learning environment, educational activities to engage your learners in making observations and analyzing data. You'll also form a community with other educators from around the country.

CSA 502 Using Project BudBurst Data in an Educational Setting 

You've engaged your learners with Project BudBurst and now you'd like to explore the data! This course overviews how to use Project BudBurst data in formal and informal learning environments. The course highlights an exciting set of online data visualization tools developed by the National Geographic FieldScope program. It also covers plant adaptations to a changing climate, and links between Project BudBurst data and other large data sets. This course is offered in one section that considers both formal and informal educational objectives.

CSA 503 Project BudBurst Certification Program for Educators 

Have you completed both CSA 501 (or 551) and CSA 502? Are you an enthusiastic educator who would like to take your participation in Project BudBurst to a new level? Take this practicum course and become a certified Project BudBurst Instructor! The certification program will deviate from other CSA courses in that it will be open for 60 days and is limited to 10 participants.

Courses are $35 and run approximately 1 month. Each course is limited to 30 participants. For those interested in teacher re-certification, each 30-day course can be taken for 2 optional graduate-level continuing education credits from Colorado School of Mines. The fee for 2 optional credits is $90.

Questions? Email us at CSAregistrar@neoninc.org

Register at https://www.chicagobotanic.org/education/citizen_science_academy