Trish Smith, seventh grade life science teacher from Warrensburg, Missouri, was invited by Dr. Harold W. Keller of Central Missouri State University to apply for a supplemental Research Experience for Teachers (RET) to his National Science Foundation (NSF) grant.  NSF granted the request and Trish and her husband Stan (a former biology teacher who is now the instructional technology coordinator for the Warrensburg school district) began documenting the research project in Warrensburg as they interviewed and photographed the student climbers as they trained in the double rope tree climbing techniques and attended introductory seminars on entomology, ecology of the GSMNP, and field techniques and tools. With the cooperation of Discover Life in America, Trish and Stan joined Dr. Keller's team while the team was in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to study the biodiversity and ecology of tree canopy biota. After joining the team in the field, the days and evenings were filled with learning about the taxa, exploring several locales of the GSMNP, acting as ground crew for the climbers, and documenting the procedures and experiences of the team.

The two-tiered website that you are now viewing will allow worldwide access to the experience of tree canopy research and allow secondary students the opportunity to conduct parallel field research in their locality.  The website activities mirror the three phases of Dr. Keller's original project: Adventure, Lab, and Publication.  Anyone who visits the website will be able to experience a virtual version of field research and get a good understanding of what the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) is all about.  Interested student groups can then choose to continue to the second tier of the web activities and conduct similar field research in their region.  Trish's Warrensburg Middle School seventh graders will be studying the myxomycetes, lichens, and insects of a Warrensburg location through field and lab work, followed by poster presentations of their findings.

It is hoped that the website experience will encourage more secondary students, in Warrensburg and beyond, to choose some form of field biology as their future career.

TARGETED AGE RANGE:  Grades 7 - 12, although the first tier should be of interest to adults, as well.

ESTIMATED TIME:  Tier One requires one to two hours (7th graders on block scheduling required about 1.5 hours when using the accompanying worksheet that guides the reader to some of the links and to the library of definitions.)  Tier Two is designed to be a long-term project that could span a few weeks to a few months.  This would be dependent on whether the teacher chooses one taxa or more for the field and lab investigations, how many skills and concepts will be addressed, and what type of end product will be produced for the "Publication" phase. Warrensburg students worked on this project for all, or part od, 36 class blocks during our first year of piloting the project.

PRIMARY CONTENT FOCUS:  Field biology, scientific research and inquiry, classification, ecology, myxomycetes, insects, lichens
 
 

 

Background Information

An iAdventure is a way of teaching students important concepts and skills by involving them in a storyline about one or more characters (fictional or real).  Tier One of this site introduces the reader to the adventures of a group of field researchers, mostly undergraduate students, who are working in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.  It is hoped that the secondary students find these people to be interesting role models as they follow the account of their work, learning about field techniques and differrent taxa.  Tier Two then guides participating students, and their teachers, through their own field experience and follow-up lab work.  These stages are more fully explained in the "Resources Needed" section below, as each teacher will need to facilitate a research project that works for them.

PLANNING TIPS:  A helpful list for anyone planning their first field research trip with students.

After completing classification work and microscopic studies (AND learning a great deal of content and so many useful skills!) the students determine a topic to continue studying and are guided to sources of information as they work through the iAdventure story pages.  Teachers that choose different taxa for study will need to substitute their own sources, but should still be able to use the format.
 
 

Curriculum Standards

This activity provides ample opportunity to address any inquiry standards found in the National Standards or in your state curriculum standards.  It will also address classification and other content standards, depending on how each teacher approaches the project.  Ecological relationships, limiting factors, invertebrates, plants, adaptation, and more can be built into both the field work and supporting activities.
 
 

Resources Needed

TIER ONE (OPENING STORY):  internet-connected computers and guidesheet

TIER TWO (THE IADVENTURE):  This will be dependent on the research that you choose to do with your students, but the following list of supplies and forms are what I have used with my students to investigate our local research site and to learn more about insects, myxomycetes, and lichens.

PREPARING FOR THE FIELD TRIP:
Letter to Parents requesting assistance (a similar letter can be emailed to local university and state conservation educators, etc.)
Image Relese form
Funds for bus costs (if site is not within walking distance)
List of Students with severe allergies/medical needs (coordinated with building nurse)
Schedule for organizing volunteers
Permission Slip
Instructions for Volunteer Chaperones - a follow-up letter sent to chaperones
List of Field Tasks - plan for many, so that all students have a specific role
Field Task Spreadsheet - student names are entered here...accounting for each person (and "people managing" students who need to be separated)
Supply List - organized by "task" teams and items bagged or boxed for each team
Tree Tags - laminated andnailed to study trees with one inch roofing nails
Field Task Instruction Sheets:  "Meadow Sweepers", "Canopy Catchers", "Litter Bugs", "Barking Up the Right Tree", "Barking Up the Right Tree" for Canopy Tree, "Lichen-Ites", "Myxo-O-Masters", "Mathama-Tree-Cians", RedCedar Database Sheet, "Data-R-Us", Lichen Log, "Tree Sleuths", "Climatologists", Relative Humidity Table
 

SUPPORTING CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES (used prior to the field work and/or labs to help prepare students and to practice identification skills):
Experimental Design Diagram - guides students through setting up an experiment.  Students can use this frequently during the year, both as a class and as individuals
Observation Lab (with stereo dissecting microscopes) - introduces taxa and builds student ability to distinguish between qualitative observations, quantitative
observations, and inferences
Textbook Worksheet - Find the appropriate pages about the taxa to be studied and create a worksheet that guides students' reading to find the most important facts (this one is prepared for use with the Holt Science and Technology series)
Video Questions for Bill Nye the Science Guy:  Insects and Spiders and for his Invertebrate video
Transparencies of typical lichens and myxomycetes
Tree identification basics (Contact your state's Department of Conservation and or Natural Resources)
Key to Invertebrate Specimens (and to classes)
Key to Common Terrestrial Soil and Litter Invertebrates
Entomology worksheet (from EnchantedLearning.com)

INSECT CLASSIFICATION TO ORDERS:
Peterson Field Guide: Insects by Donald J. Borrer and Richard E. White (ISBN 0-395-18523-8)
Insect Identification Key created by Stan and Trish Smith using the Peterson guide and updated in 2005 by Dr. Stephen Wilson - used to identify insects to order
Dissecting scopes, hand lenses, petri plates, forceps, dissecting needles, alcohol, pins and cork (optional...unless a collection is being mounted for display)
Berlese Funnels - easy to make and are described in several sources (For all aspects of lab-based biology teaching, I strongly recommend  A Sourcebook for the Biological Sciences by Evelyn Morholt and Paul F. Brandwein, ISBN 0-15-582852-5.)
Insect Order labels
Collected Invertebrate table document

MOIST CHAMBER LAB:
150 x 25 mm plastic petri plates (sterile)
Sterilized filter paper, 15 cm diameter
Sterile distilled water (de-ionized if you can work with a local university or lab with the proper distiller and autoclave)
Dissecting scopes, hand lenses, forceps, dissecting needles,  straight pins
Orion model 610 pH meter ($600, calibrated to pH 7 and 4) and buffer solutions ... this model has a flat sensor and will measure the pH of the filter paper with very little water standing in the dish.  (This has proven to be a difficult aspect of transferring the lab to the secondary classroom as my pH meters are less expensive and not flat.  I will be experimenting with some different methods this year to see if I can get accurate results, but it must be noted that these are NOT the standard method used by mycologists)  I will use ultrafine pH test strips as one alternative method and then the following bark pH procedure that is a modified soil pH protocol.
Bark pH Procedure document  (Remember, this will be field tested in 2005-06)
Moist Chamber Technique document (summarized from pages 24-25 of  Myxomycetes of Ohio:  Their Systematics, Biology, and Use in Teaching
Myxomycetes of Ohio:  Their Systematics, Biology, and Use in Teaching by Harold W. Keller and Karl L. Braun (ISBN 0-86727-133-7)
Myxomycetes:  A Handbook of Slime Molds by Steven L. Stephenson and Henry Stempen  (ISBN 0-88192-439-3)
Examination of Moist Chamber Cultures labsheet - used to record and describe myxomycete growth
Key to the Myxomycete Orders for Students document (this is new for 2005-06 and may need modification, but is being checked by Dr. Keller)
Myxomycete database of Pertle Springs - what we found during our first year (2005-06)

POST LAB WRITING AND iAdventure RESEARCH:
"Type 1" Writing Assignment - Students are asked to write a reflection paper after the field work
"What Have We Learned So Far?" quiz over concepts, used after first year's field work
Scoring guide for  Research into background material
Writing a Scientific Report
Dilemma One Research of websites worksheet
Bibliography guidelines (I use the MLA format that my district will expect students to use in the following years)
Several other books are gathered from the school and public libraries and kept in the classroom during the research for the "Introduction"
 
 

(ALL OF THE FORMS HAVE BEEN DONE IN WORD AND ARE AVAILABLE BY SENDING AN EMAIL TO TRISH.  THE HTML FORMAT SOMETIMES LOSES SOME OF THE ORIGINAL FORMATTING.)
 

Assessment

You will most likely provide some details about the project's assessment in the Conclusion page of your iAdventure. But that section is designed for students only. There may be additional information that the teachers may need to know. This is the place to provide it. You may even want to paste a copy of the scoring guide or rubric here.
 
 

Creating Conclusions and Student Products

The culminating event or task of an iAdventure is when students create the conclusion or product, as described in the "Create a Conclusion" page. Often these tasks are somewhat complex and this is the place for you to provide any additional information that teachers might need in order to be prepared.
 
 

Acknowledgements

This is where you can give credit to those that may have provided you with important resources that you used to complete your iAdventure. This would the sources of your digital images, references to print materials, including fiction books, etc.

It might be a good idea to state that the iAdventure concept was developed in the Warrensburg, MO school district, as part of the "Learning with iAdventures" program. This program was funded by a Competitive Technology grant from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Provide a link here, like the following:

For more information on iAdventures, visit the iAdventure Home Page.