# data[].attributes.body
North American Association for Environmental Education

# data[].attributes.body
CoCoRahs-Rain/Hail/Snow monitoring

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
CoCoRaHS - Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network

# data[].attributes.body
iNaturalist

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
iNaturalist.org is a social network for naturalists! Record your observations of plants and animals, share them with friends and researchers, and learn about the natural world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Students from around the globe will team up to test fresh water. Join us in this collaborative project, comparing the water quality of your local river, stream, lake or pond with other fresh water sources around the world. The focus of the project is to:

# data[].attributes.body
Project Feeder Watch

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program is a worldwide hands-on, primary and secondary school-based science and education program.

# data[].attributes.body
Education and the Environment Initiative (EEI)

# data[].attributes.body
PLT Greenworks

# data[].attributes.body
Cloud observation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Our Citizen Scientists are called Rovers, they are roaming Cloud Observers. Rovers will collect data on cloud type, height, cover and related conditions. Your observations help us to validate satellite data and give us a more complete picture of clouds in the atmosphere and their interactions with other parts of the integrated global Earth system.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
LEARNING IS IN OUR NATURE - Project Learning Tree

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Activities and resources to engage children in learning about the environment through the lens of trees and forests. SEE PLT IN ACTION

# data[].attributes.body
Light pollution

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Globe at Night is an international citizen-science campaign to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution by inviting citizen-scientists to measure & submit their night sky brightness observations. It's easy to get involved - all you need is computer or smart phone & follow these 5 Simple Steps!

# data[].attributes.body
Citizen Science

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Budburst brings together researchers, educators, gardeners, and citizen scientists on a shared journey to uncover the stories of how plants are affected by a changing climate. We hope that sharing these stories will increase appreciation of plants and the natural world and inspire conservation action.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Montana-based Project WET (Water Education Today) is an international, award-winning nonprofit that publishes activities and provides training workshops for K-12 educators.

The program promotes awareness, appreciation, knowledge and stewardship of water resources through its classroom-ready teaching aids

The Water Education Foundation is the coordinator of Project WET in California, and organizes workshops for K-12 educators across the state.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Project WET - Water Education Foundation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Montana-based Project WET (Water Education Today) is an international, award-winning nonprofit that publishes activities ...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
CoCoRaHS - Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The California Environmental Education Interagency Network (CEEIN) is a state government consortium of environmental educators representing departments, boards, and commissions of the California Department of Education, California Environmental Protection Agency, The Resources Agency of California, and the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
National Environmental Education Week (NEEF) - National Environmental Education Week, April 17-23, 2016 - register your event, field trip or project as an EE Week event and become eligible for...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Banana Slug String Band | Environmental Educators & Performers | CA

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Banana Slug String Band | Environmental Educators & Performers | CA

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Banana Slug String Band is a group of lovable musicians and educators from Northern California. Shop, learn more & contact us for performances or workshops

# data[].attributes.body
SCHOOLYARD HABITATS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Photo credit: USFWS

Schoolyard Habitat Fact Sheet (.pdf)

Benefits of Schoolyard Habitats

Schoolyard Habitat projects are designed to achieve the mission and goals of the school, the Service, and the community. They address multiple environmental and educational concepts that benefit all involved, particularly the students.

Ecologically sound: Schoolyard habitat projects provide habitat for local and migratory wildlife including songbirds, shorebirds, small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects and more. In many cases, these habitats also provide a vegetative buffer to nearby streams, helping to reduce pollution reaching these waterways. To be ecologically sound the schoolyard habitats must be large enough in size and scope so they have a lasting impact on the local environment.

Integrated into the curriculum: Schoolyard habitats offer many teaching and learning opportunities in English, science, mathematics, history, geography, social studies and art. The process of planning, creating and using a schoolyard habitat exposes children to unique hands-on experiences. A well-designed schoolyard habitat provides the opportunity for authentic long term data collection, which teachers attest is an important element for effective teaching.

Stewardship: Research has shown that during the formative years of life, students develop perceptions and values about their environment. If designed and managed well by students, schoolyards can provide them with a powerful example of good land stewardship. Experts have demonstrated that young children are driven to explore, discover and play while refining motor skills. A schoolyard that includes a diversity of natural areas allows students to exercise these needs while nurturing the development of a land ethic that values natural spaces.

Restoring a native habitat on a school site provides opportunities for:

Children: to develop knowledge and skills as they undertake an exciting, real-life project.

Teachers: to use the broad context of restoring the school yard to help enliven teaching and learning that can weave through the curriculum from kindergarten through 12th grade and beyond.

A school: to create opportunities for community involvement and diversify the schoolyard environment.

Restoring a school landscape provides the opportunity to engage students in:

Scientific inquiry in a meaningful context;

Hands-on, minds-on learning;

Real-life, important decisions that build confidence and resiliency;

Interdisciplinary learning in a broad context;

Work among peers, classes, grades and schools.

Community involvement through cooperative projects.

Download the project guide here. (8MB, PDF)
SCHOOLYARD HABITAT: Rio Vista Middle School Students discuss their project

The Students from Rio Vista Middle School were mentored by the Schoolyard Habitat team to plant over 300 native plants to support butterflies and other pollinators during this January habitat planting day. This project took a significant amount of irrigation offline, allowing the school budget to grow as well. (Video by Ashley Spratt/USFWS)

SCHOOLYARD HABITAT: Sacramento's Williamson Elementary School Put Finishing Touches on Their Project

Students at Williamson Elementary School in Rancho Cordova, Calif., put the finishing touches on their newest classroom, using shovels and trowels and getting dirty in the process. The school, which was very close to shutting down last year, now has a new place to learn outside of the classroom in a native pollinator garden. Limited budgets for field trips will not be boxing these kids in this year.

The excitement of the day was not always a given. Last year Williamson was one of three schools in the area that were considered for closure. Two would need to close and other neighborhood schools would absorb the students from those closing. It was a very strong possibility that it could have been Williamson. Near the end of the school year, the decision to keep Williamson open was made. Now instead of closing its doors, after a year and a half of teacher training and site preparation, students eagerly planted, mulched and watered their new classroom. As the weather warms and plants grow and bloom, this garden full of native plants will attract pollinator species, such as butterflies and songbirds, and give students an engaging place to learn outside of the classroom.

"It's great to see kids in a different light outside of the classroom," said school's principal, Andy Smith. "It's getting them out of the classroom and getting [them] to do things they wouldn't normally do."

Your School Can Be a 'Green Ribbon Award' Winner

Photo Credit: USFWS

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) has teamed up with the U.S. Department of Education (Department) to help your school be recognized for being green with the Green Ribbon Award program. The Department recently announced the pilot U.S. Green Ribbon School award program honoring schools that have taken steps to green their campuses including their buildings and grounds.

By participating in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Schoolyard Habitat Program, not only will you be creating homes for wildlife and educational spaces for students you will also be eligible to apply for the Green Ribbon School award. The Service's Schoolyard Habitat program helps schools Initiate, Create and Incorporate wildlife habitat projects that are also used as outdoor classrooms.

Teachers are able to enhance standard curriculum that align with Federal and state education goals and mandates, while improving students skills in core subjects such as science, math, reading, and language arts. For more information contact one of our Schoolyard Habitat Coordinators listed on this page.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Programs | The Schoolyard Habitat: Helping teachers and students create wildlife habitat at their schools

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Typical Schoolyard Habitat projects include: wetlands, meadows, forests and variations based on specific ecoregions. Many projects are planned through multiple phases and change over time as children from various classes build upon the existing work of past students.

# data[].attributes.body
CEEIN

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The California Environmental Education Interagency Network (CEEIN) is a state government consortium of environmental educators representing departments, boards, and commissions of the California Department of Education, California Environmental Protection Agency, The Resources Agency of California, and the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Your bird sightings can influence more than just the birding and conservation worlds. eBird checklists are a quintessential example of 'Big Data'-a massive dataset, chock full of patterns, that contains myriad opportunities to explore exciting questions in fields like statistics or machine learning. Giles Hooker, Associate Professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, has been using eBird data to understand inherent biases in predictive models that use large datasets. How do you control for as much bias as possible? How can you quantify uncertainty? Read more about how your eBird data are having impact here.

Most birders know that males of many bird species sing. Less well known is that females of many species sing too - and that their songs can often be equally beautiful and complex. In fact, recent research shows that females sing in about 2/3 of songbird species, and that female songs likely evolved alongside male songs in the early ancestors of modern songbirds. Yet, female songs are greatly underrepresented in recording collections. For researchers to understand how songbirds evolved their diverse songs, we need recordings of female songs from around the world. This is a daunting task. The Female Bird Song Project is asking birders, like yourself, to help observe and record female songs through your eBird checklists. Read more to find out how you can help!

Want to learn how to be a better birder? We all feel that sometimes. We're excited to partner with the Cornell Lab's Bird Academy to offer a suite of exciting educational resources in thanks for your eBirding: in June, every that you submit gives you a chance to win free access to the online self-paced courses Be a Better Birder 1 & 2.

Ten lucky eBirders will get this course for free for their June eBirding! If you like taking part in the eBirder of the Month Challenges , here are even more opportunities to motivate yourself to get out birding. Each month of 2017 will feature a different Bird Academy course offering-tune in at the start of July to see what's on tap for next month.

Please join us in congratulating of Klamath, California, winner of the May 2017 eBird Challenge, sponsored by Carl Zeiss Sports Optics. Our May winner was drawn from eBirders who submitted 3 or more eligible checklists on 13 May- Global Big Day. Ken's name was drawn randomly from the 5,684 eligible eBirders who achieved the May challenge threshold. Ken will receive new ZEISS Conquest HD 8×42 binoculars for his eBirding efforts. Read more to see Ken's full story.

This month's eBirder of the Month challenge, sponsored by Carl Zeiss Sports Optics, gives you a chance to improve our knowledge of breeding birds across the world. In much of the world, June is a critical time in the annual cycle of many birds, as they build nests, hatch chicks, and hopefully fledge young-perpetuating the existence of their species. Even if June isn't peak breeding season near you, there are still many signs of breeding to be found wherever you are! The eBirder of the month will be drawn from eBirders who submit at least 15 eligible checklists containing at least one breeding code during June. eBird Mobile now lets you enter breeding codes on your mobile checklists, so taking part is easier than ever. Winners will be notified by the 10th of the following month.

eBird Mobile has been available as a speedy and free data-entry app for iOS and Android devices since 2015. Nearly 200,000 people have used eBird Mobile, and over 50% of all eBird sightings are now entered via the app. Until recently, eBird Mobile has been entirely focused on data collection-today we're very excited to announce the release of My eBird tools across eBird Mobile! See your life list, your year list, your month list, and how your birding this year compares to your past years. Can you beat your record from last year? Are you ahead of pace this year or a bit behind?

In the coming months, we'll be adding an eBird Mobile feature that lets you collect GPS tracks of where you bird (making distance calculations easier than ever), as well as more exciting mobile tools.
Download eBird Mobile today

At eBird, our goal is to connect valuable birdwatcher sightings with research and conservation. The eBird checklists that you've entered have been used in over 100 peer-reviewed papers, and hundreds of local, regional, and national conservation decisions. We're excited to feature one of the most recent papers published on eBird, "Increasing phenological asynchrony between spring green-up and arrival of migratory birds". Read on to see lead author Stephen Mayor's story of how eBird data helped illuminate an increasing mismatch between when plants green up and when migrant birds return in spring.

It's BirdCast time! Do you ever wonder what migrant birds will be arriving soon in your local birding spots? BirdCast's weekly migration forecasts keep you up to date with what's on deck for migration, highlighting migrant species that you can expect to see. All of these forecasts are generated with your eBird data, and wouldn't be possible without eBirders like you! Although these forecasts are currently just for the continental United States, as we get more sightings from the rest of the world we'll be able to bring BirdCast to more regions. Read more to see what's happening across the US in the coming days.

Birds are inspiring creatures. Their amazing migrations and behaviors capture our imagination, and their global presence lets us appreciate them wherever we are in the world. The power that birds have to bring people together across cultures, languages, and countries is truly exceptional. Global Big Day is the realization of the magic of birds-a single day where the birding world unites in a shared pursuit, seeking to answer the simple question: how many birds can be seen in one day?

On 13 May 2017, almost 20,000 birders from 150 countries around the world joined together as a global team, contributing more than 50,000 checklists containing 6,564 species-more than 60% of the world's birds. This is a new record for the number of bird species reported in a single day, and it's thanks to you. From Antarctica to Zimbabwe, your contributions make this possible.

Global Big Day. 13 May 2017. Sightings have already been reported from more than 140 countries around the world, with over 6000 species reported by 15,000 eBirders. Follow live results here. We're on track to set a new record for birding's biggest day for the third year in a row-and your sightings are what make that possible! Enter your sightings in eBird before the end of the day on 16 May (Tuesday) to make them count. There are already more than 1,300 species eBirded from Colombia (!), and Brazil and Peru have crossed the 1,000-species mark as well. Who will finish in the #1 slot? See the cumulative world species list here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Your bird sightings can influence more than just the birding and conservation worlds. eBird checklists are a quintessential example of 'Big Data'-a massive dataset, chock full of patterns, that contains myriad opportunities to explore exciting questions in fields like statistics or machine learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
National Environmental Education Week (NEEF) - National Environmental Education Week, April 17-23, 2016 - register your event, field trip or project as an EE Week event and become eligible for...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Green Ribbon Schools Award Program - Facility Design (CA Dept of Education)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Information to assist schools in applying to the California Department of Education for recognition as a green ribbon school at the federal level.