Favorite Links - Nanjemoy Creek Environmental Center

Chesapeake Bay Resources

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation. This site shares information regarding research and the latest in politics regarding the Bay. http://www.cbf.org

Bay Backpack. Learn some creative ways to integrate the Chesapeake Bay and environmental issues into your classroom lessons. http://www.baybackpack.com

USFWS Chesapeake Bay Office. Information on wildlife and habitats in our region. There is also information on Bayscapes, School yard habitat projects, and other restoration efforts. http://www.fws.gov/chesapeakebay/

Environmental Education Resources

Grants

Chesapeake Bay Trust. This is the organization that is responsible for those Bay License plates. The money from those plates supports grants that you and/or your students can write for projects working to improve the watershed. https://cbtrust.org/

Donors Choose. Disney has collaborated with DonorsChoose.org an online charity that connects individual donors with public school classrooms in need to fund 50% of your environmental projects. http://www.donorschoose.org/teachers

Target Field Trip Grants. Each year, Target store grants help K-12 schools and nonprofit organizations bring arts and cultural experiences to students, provide support for educational field trips and fund early childhood reading programs. https://corporate.target.com/corporate-responsibility/grants

Chesapeake Bay Trust K-12 Environmental Education Mini Grant. The Chesapeake Bay Trust Mini Grant Program supports field experiences, fieldwork and student-led action projects as well as teacher professional development and programs to advance environmental literacy in the Chesapeake Bay area. https://cbtrust.org/grants/environmental-education-mini/

Keep Maryland Beautiful Grant. These grants are offered annually to volunteer groups, nonprofit organizations, communities, and land trusts in Maryland to support environmental education projects, community stewardship, and the protection of natural resources in urban and rural areas. https://news.maryland.gov/dnr/2023/09/01/applications-being-accepted-for-2024-keep-maryland-beautiful-grants/

Nature Cams

Osprey Cam. Wetlands Institute Osprey Cam http://wetlandsinstitute.org/education/osprey-camera/ Chesapeake Conservancy Osprey Cam http://www.chesapeakeconservancy.org/osprey-cam

Eagle Cams. Washington, DC Arboretum Eagle Cam. http://naeaglecam.org, Decorah, Iowa Eagles. https://explore.org/livecams/bald-eagles/decorah-eagles-north-nest , Port Tobacco River Park Eagle Cam. https://www.charlescountyparks.com/parks/eagle-cam

Bird Cams. Various bird cams sponsored by Cornell Lab. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/all-cams/

Online Field Guides

Discover Life. Provides free on-line tools to identify species, share ways to teach and study nature’s wonders, report findings, build maps, process images, and contribute to and learn from a growing, interactive encyclopedia of life that now has 1,148,881 species pages. http://www.discoverlife.org

Cornell Lab of Ornithology. A guide to birds and birdwatching. Information on 585 species are in this online bird guide. http://www.allaboutbirds.org/

Student Action Projects

Virtual Field Trips

Citizen Science Resources

Citizen Science Project Opportunities:
Scistarter. Science we can do together. This is the place to find out about, take part in, and contribute to science through recreational activities and research projects. http://scistarter.com/index.html

Ecology based citizen science:
iNaturalist. Every observation can contribute to biodiversity science, from the rarest butterfly to the most common backyard weed. iNaturalist shares your findings with scientific data repositories like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility to help scientists find and use your data. All you have to do is observe. iNaturalist is a joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society. https://www.inaturalist.org

Project Feeder Watch. Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. Bird feeder survey from November through April of birds that visit feeders at your school, backyards and community areas in North America. Note: there is an annual fee. http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw

eBird. eBird’s goal is to maximize the utility and accessibility of the vast numbers of bird observations made each year by recreational and professional bird watchers. https://ebird.org/home

Digital Fishers. Digital Fisher needs volunteers to help analyze deep-sea videos — 15 seconds at a time. Volunteers watch a short video of the ocean and click on a simple response. Help scientists better understand ocean animal communities. http://scistarter.com/project/554-Digital%20Fishers

Celebrate Urban Birds. Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. This five step project involves 10 minute bird observation 16 different species of “urban birds” from their list and then entering online or submitting mailed data forms. https://celebrateurbanbirds.org/

Journey North. A Global Study of Wildlife Migration and Seasonal Change: https://journeynorth.org/

Monarchs. Citizen scientists track the monarch butterfly migration each fall and spring as the monarchs travel to and from Mexico. https://journeynorth.org/monarchs
American robin. Beginning in February, citizen scientists across North America are invited to report their first robin of spring, waves of migrating robins, and the first robin song of spring. https://journeynorth.org/robins
Red-winged Blackbirds. Report your first Red-winged Blackbird sightings of the year. https://journeynorth.org/rwbb/index.html
Hummingbirds. Students use interactive maps to track hummingbirds as they make a remarkable journey north from Central America and Mexico. https://journeynorth.org/hummingbirds
Tulip Test Gardens. Students check soil temperature in a Tulip Test Garden and report it and tulip growth to the interactive site. https://journeynorth.org/tulips
Sunlight and the Seasons. Students share and compare sunrise and sunset observations from online resources and with students around the world after calculating their own day length. https://journeynorth.org/sunlight-seasons

Operation RubyThroat. Allows citizen scientists to collect data about Ruby Throated Hummingbird migration and nesting. http://rubythroat.org/default2.html

Lost Ladybug Project. This project asks citizen scientists to help find out where all the ladybugs have gone so we can try to prevent more native species from becoming so rare. http://www.lostladybug.org/

Firefly Watch. This project is trying to map the geographic distribution of fireflies and what environmental factors impact their abundance. https://www.fireflyatlas.org

Mothing. Our goals are to study moth communities and teach how to collect, analyze and present data. https://www.discoverlife.org/moth

Native Bee Citizen Science Project - Planet Bee. This engaging program includes placing native bee homes engineered by students on their school campus to conduct research and collect data using scientific methods (including the iNaturalist app) as they help bees survive through stewardship projects. https://www.planetbee.org/citizen-science

Monarch Larva Monitoring Program. The goal of the project is to better understand how and why monarch populations vary in time and space, with a focus on monarch distribution and abundance during the breeding season in North America. http://www.mlmp.org/

Shout: Smithsonian Tree Banding Project. A citizen science program that contributes to research about tree biomass and will track how trees respond to climate. https://treebanding.si.edu/

Community Science for Bees - The Bee Conservancy Of the 4,000 species of bees in North America, 1 in 4 is at risk of extinction. You will find and photograph pollinators and their habitat in your area and share them with more than one million scientists, researchers, and naturalists through the iNaturalist app. https://thebeeconservancy.org/citizen-community-science-for-bees/

Physical/Earth Science based citizen science:

Galaxy Zoo. Galaxy Zoo needs your help to classify galaxies according to their shapes. http://www.galaxyzoo.org/

EarthEcho Water Challenge. An international program that builds public awareness and involvement in protecting water resources around the world by engaging citizens to conduct basic monitoring of their local water bodies. http://www.worldwatermonitoringday.org/

Phenology based citizen science:
Project Budburst. Project Budburst is a network of people across the United States who monitor plants as the seasons change. This is a national field campaign designed to engage the public in the collection of important ecological data based on the timing of leafing, flowering, and fruiting of plants (plant phenophases). http://www.budburst.org/

Nature’s Notebook. Nature’s Notebook is a national plant and animal phenology observation program. You can join thousands of other individuals who are providing valuable observations that scientists, educators, policy makers, and resource managers are using to understand how plants and animals are responding to climate change and other environmental changes. https://www.usanpn.org/natures_notebook

Project Noah. Project Noah is a tool to explore and document wildlife. Project Noah was created to provide people of all ages with a simple, easy-to-use way to share their experiences with wildlife. http://www.projectnoah.org/

Links for teachers

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. For formal and non-formal educators, this website includes curriculum resources and activities, community service projects, professional development opportunities, background information, and contacts and other links. Topics include: climate change, endangered species invasive species, pollinators and wetlands. http://www.fws.gov/

EcoLibrary. EcoLibrary allows students and teachers to freely use materials that support learning about ecology, conservation biology, and the environment. https://www.discoverlife.org/ed/ecolibrary/original.html

LiveScience. An original content site focusing on the innovative and intriguing in Science and Technology. It covers news, views and scientific inquiry with articles by respected science journalists and contributors, LiveScience looks at new discoveries, intellectual adventures and the idiosyncrasies of the world that surrounds us. www.livescience.com/environment

Nature Lab. Nature is the fantastic factory that makes the building blocks of all our lives—food, drinking water, the stuff we own, and the air we breathe. That’s why The Nature Conservancy and its 550 scientists have created Nature Lab: to help students learn the science behind how nature works for us and how we can help keep it running strong. https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/who-we-are/how-we-work/youth-engagement/nature-lab/

Teach with Technology. Great site for all subject areas. Check out the Tracks for web quests that other teachers have developed and you can access by keyword, such as WATERSHED or WETLANDS. This site helps teachers locate and create ready-to-use Web lessons, quizzes, rubrics and classroom calendars. There are also tools for student use. http://www.4teachers.org

Project Learning Tree®. PLT is a program of the American Forest Foundation that uses the forest as a window on the world. PLT provides educators with peer-reviewed, award-winning environmental education curriculum resources that can be integrated into lesson plans for all grades and subject areas. https://www.plt.org/environmental-curriculum-resources-for-teachers

United States Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA provides K-12 students and educators access to quality homework resources, lesson plans and project ideas to learn and teach about the environment. http://www.epa.gov/students

National Environmental Education Foundation. NEEF is an independent non-profit organization working with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). NEEF’s mission is not to tear down the walls separating us from nature, but to open a doorway to it – to show Americans how much we need nature: how it sustains our lives, benefits our health, and enriches our souls. http://www.neefusa.org/

Catch the Bug. K-4. This site aims to increase science literacy, raise environmental awareness and introduce science careers. http://www.sciencebug.org

University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Information about the Maryland Bay-Wise Program. This site focuses on homeowner education to help reduce pollutants in the local waterways and the Chesapeake Bay by providing information on how to keep a healthy landscape. http://extension.umd.edu/baywise

BirdSleuth. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a wide variety of lessons and activities to captivate learners Gr K-12. https://www.birds.cornell.edu/k12/get-started/

Immersion Learning. Resources for teaching about oceans Gr 4-8. http://immersionlearning.org

Climate Change, Wildlife, and Wildlands Toolkit. This toolkit is designed for classroom teachers and informal educators and is aimed at the middle school grade level.The kit was developed to aid educators in teaching how climate change is affecting our nation’s wildlife and public lands, and how everyone can become “climate stewards.” https://www.globalchange.gov/resources/wildlife-wildlands-toolkit

Climate Science Resources, NOAA. This NOAA website is an amazing resource linking teachers to climate science student activities, labs, interactive tools and lesson plans, all reviewed by NOAA specialists. Find multimedia tools to enhance your lessons and support student understanding. Professional development opportunities can also be found on this site. http://www.climate.gov/teaching/all

Links for students

Kids for A Clean Environment. Their mission is to provide information on environmental issues to children, to encourage and facilitate youth’s involvement with effective environmental action and to recognize those efforts which result in the improvement of nature. http://www.kidsface.org/

The Imagination Factory. Teaches children creative ways to recycle by making art. The lessons and activities include drawing, painting, sculpture, collage, papier-mache, marbling, and crafts. http://www.kid-at-art.com/

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. For students of all ages. Explore and learn about birds, butterflies, bats, and endangered species and how you can help conserve, protect, and enhance them. https://www.fws.gov/refuges/learn/