Cell Analogy Poster Project
​In my 5th grade science class cell unit, I challenge students with a Cell Analogy Poster (CAP) project. Students compare a plant or animal cell to a familiar non-living system, object or community with many different parts (ex: the Boston Red Sox, a motorcycle, Dunkin’ Donuts, a hotel, a hospital, etc...), and analyze how each part has a role similar to the function of each cell organelle. 

For the past four years, I've addressed that in my curriculum through Bay Area Wonders, a project that was initially developed as a collaboration with former Nueva School writing teacher Cliff Burke. We were both inspired when we saw writer Aimee Nezhukumatathil speak at our school's 2020 Humanities Fair; even over Zoom, Nezhukumatathil sparkled with enthusiasm, and her insights about her writing process and the natural world were equally impressive. She spoke about her NYT-bestselling book World Of Wonders — a collection of essays that explore her connections, both real and metaphorical, to different species from around the world. In her own words, these essays are “celebrations of being curious, and slowing down to notice the sensations of wonder that arise from looking at nature.” Each essay is devoted to a unique species, and they are all beautifully illustrated by Fumi Nakamura. Cliff and I both went on to read the book, and we were inspired to have our students emulate the form of these "wonder essays." That original idea evolved into the Bay Area Wonders project, which Nueva's 5th grade teachers of science, writing, and art have implemented every year since.

For the project, we keep a local focus rather than global. Students are provided a curated list of Bay Area and Monterey Bay native plants and animals to choose from, but they are also free to select a species they find on their own. We encourage students to choose a species with which they feel connected; for some, they have observed an organism first hand, while for others they just relate to an aspect of the organism's physical characteristics or behavior. So a student might feel connected to a humpback whale because they saw one breaching on a whale-watching trip or they might feel an affinity towards a mountain lion, having never encountered one, due to its speed and agility.

While our polyps were delightful, it's also an option to 3D print durable physical models of polyps or entire colonies. 3D models of actual coral specimens can be made using a technique called photogrammetry to “capture” corals in three dimensions. In the process, multiple 2D photographs of a coral taken from different angles are combined into one 3D digital model using custom computer software. Models can be created through photogrammetry of both living corals underwater and preserved specimens in a museum. These types of models can be made for scientific study, museum exhibits, education, aquariums, or just for fun! Non-profit organization called The Hydrous, committed to connecting people to the ocean through technology, has a diverse gallery of digital coral models (see them on SketchFab). Once you have a digital model of a coral, it can be easily 3D printed.

Do you want to go deeper? To continue your own coral reef adventure, here is a curated list of some resources for learners of all ages:

• The Hydrous - read more about their mission, download your own 3D coral models, find educational resources, and get instructions for viewing The Hydrous Presents: Immerse VR movie
• Lost Cities - view interactive documentary by CaravanLab and Ruth Gates about coral reef science and conservation (self-paced).
• Expedition Reef - watch California Academy of Sciences animated planetarium show about coral reef ecology (25 mins).
• Chasing Coral - watch full-length Netflix documentary by Jeff Orlowski addressing threats to coral reefs (1 hr. 28 mins).
• Coral Reef Ecology - take a free mini-course by the Living Oceans Foundation (self-paced). 

And for teachers:

• Coral Reef educational materials - National Geographic Education
• Coral Reef educational materials  - NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation Program
• Investigating Coral Bleaching Using Data in the Classroomnoaa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=bee500fe72174e49aa577205151a3ca0 - NOAA Data in the Classroom
  
• Expedition Reef for Educators - California Academy of Sciences

Some students used paper and cardboard to great effect...

Some students used food like these sour gummies and homemade chocolates...

One student even made his own candy to demonstrate each stage of the rock cycle in a project he called "Willy Wonka Geology." Check out the detail on his cocoa marshmallow "pumice" and his arrangement of the confections.

All students documented their project research, brainstorming, and progress in  their digital science notebook. The focus was on a process of iteration. Below are some sample science notebook pages.

Watch this short compilation video and you'll see legos, clay, and other artistic mediums that the students utilized:

This project was a chance for students to flex their knowledge by designing a scientific model that demonstrated Earth's dynamic recycling process in which all rock types can be derived from or form each other over geologic time. They were better able to predict outcomes of different geologic forces and discover relationships among the rock types. It was a powerful learning experience.

I am grateful to my Associate Teacher, Tim Varga, for taking the lead on developing and instructing this project work. Fellow science educators interested in incorporating the project into your curriculum, you can find our Modeling the Rock Cycle Project Doc (including instructions, timeline, and rubric) on the Shares tab above. 

I hope to integrate more photographic storytelling into my future science courses, so students can express themselves and illustrate concepts through a visual medium. I will convey this to students: next time you are somewhere with a camera, don't just point and shoot- aim and create. Challenge yourself to compose interesting images. Look for details others might miss. Tell an authentic story of place. With lots of practice, you might even become a National Geographic photographer. 

​Educators, Storytelling for Impact in Your Classroom: Photography is a  free course, and it also includes complimentary access to Adobe Creative Cloud software for you and your students.  The online learning is self-paced yet there are many opportunities to exchange feedback with other participants. You will gain classroom-ready resources like handouts and videos and start to develop a plan to integrate to photographic storytelling into your curriculum. Empower your students to tell their stories. If you are ready to register, please visit this webpage!

I think nurturing critical creativity is important in the science classroom and, especially in remote learning, activities like these are a fun outlet for students. ​

Some students took the opportunity to hand draw (and photograph) their work, and some students worked with digital tools. Either way, the results were amazing. Check out some student work samples below.

Quite a cast of characters, right? Fellow science educators interested in incorporating this project into your curriculum, you can find the Make-a-Mineral Doc lesson on my Shares page. 

I have included analogies into a Word Study activity I've implemented this year; for selected vocabulary words, I have students complete a Word Study in their digital Science Notebook using the template below. In the "Connection" section many students opt to share an analogy to help make a connection to an unfamiliar word. 

In my 5th grade Earth and Environmental Science class, I recently challenged students to come up with creative analogies comparing Earth to another layered object in an annotated drawing. Below are some samples of excellent student work. After completing their Earth analogy, students were encouraged to analyze the benefits and limitations of their model in their science notebooks. The activity was a great way for students to showcase their artistic talents while sense-making, and students appreciated the choice they had in selecting their analogy.

Fellow science teachers, how might you incorporate analogies in your teaching? 

Remember, being a naturalist involves asking questions about our observations. One of the most simple ones, about an organism, is: “what is that?” Certainly, names have importance and learning to identify species is a useful skill, but it should be just the beginning of your inquiry. Naturalists wonder about about natural phenomena they witness. They ask questions concerning ecology, that is, about all the complex interactions among living things and their environment. Questions might include: why are some squirrels grey and some black?; how is that gall wasp parasitic?; what trees do woodpeckers prefer?; how does fungus pop up after a rain?; which flowers attract the most butterflies?; and why do I only hear owls at night? 

Sometimes the answers are revealed through systematic observation, but often the questions spark interesting research. For example, I saw tiny purple blooms growing right out of a tree trunk! It appeared to be cauliflory, when plants flower and fruit from their trunks or main branches. Yet I was only familiar with cauliflorous tropical plants like cacao, breadfruit and papaya. When I did some research, I found out that redbud trees (Cercis) like this one are fantastic local examples of cauliflory. This evolutionary trait allows trees to have their seeds dispersed or be pollinated by animals that can’t fly or climb. ​

When you are ready to develop your species identification skills, you'll have to look closely at morphological characteristics of the organism (size, shape, structures); details like type of leaf margins, number of appendages, and position of color bands become critical. Why not use your smartphone to enhance your learning? I highly recommend the app iNaturalist, as it provides an online community of naturalists and the ability for any registered user to upload observation photos with locations. iNaturalist observations are organized in various projects, confirmed by expert naturalists, and are a form of citizen science― meaning the data collected by members of the public is used in actual scientific studies! Kids need parental permission to use the iNaturalist, but there's also a cool version for younger users called Seek. It has a gamification that can be appealing- like Pokemon but with nature. Another great citizen science all, specifically for bird identification, is eBird; use it to upload and log your own bird observations and find bird hotspots documented by the eBird user community.
​
​As a naturalist, one question you might ask yourself is “How many different species are in my backyard?” One awesome citizen science activity to help answer that question of backyard biodiversity is to conduct a biological survey of an area in a specified period of time. It's called a BioBlitz! The goal is to identify and document as many different species as possible, and you can record the data in your nature journal or with iNaturalist. Find detailed instructions for conducting one in National Geographic Education’s Backyard Bioblitz. ​ When I conducted a backyard BioBlitz, I catalogued almost 100 species of animals and plants. Not surprisingly, the most animal diversity was among the insects; I identified red skimmer dragonflies, sweat bees, pill bugs, blister beetles, carpenter ants, yellow-faced bumblebees, painted lady butterflies, Jerusalem crickets, and so many more. 

The Galápagos archipelago is a province of Ecuador  and straddles the Equator in the eastern Pacific approximately 600 miles from the mainland. It's comprised of 13 large islands and over 40 small islands, islets and rocks. The total land area of the Galápagos islands, just over 3,000 square miles, is about half the size of Hawaii. ​

​In 1959, the Ecuadorian Government declared all uninhabited areas of the Galápagos Islands  a National Park (a total of 96% of the total area). Since the 1960's the Galápagos National Park Service has managed the park with help from the Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galápagos Islands, a private non-profit scientific and conservation organization. The region's  unique cultural and natural treasures made Galápagos the world’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site. What a place to explore!

So, on Thanksgiving, I flew out of San Francisco on a seven hour red-eye flight to Panama City, Panama where I was thrilled to find a Dunkin' Donuts to buy a coffee. After a brief layover, I flew to Guayaquil, Ecuador to spend the night at a hotel. The next morning it was time to fly to San Cristobal Island. There, we had to clear additional customs and familiarize ourselves with Galápagos National Park rules. It was finally time to check out the port and board the National Geographic Endeavor II. Lindblad Expeditions has over 50 years experience in Galápagos: read about the ship here; and get more information  about travel with Lindblad in the region here. 

About 30,000 people live in the Galápagos. Only four of the large islands (Santa Cruz, Isabela, Floreana and San Cristobal) are inhabited. This city, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, here on San Cristobal Island, is the capital of the Ecuadorian province of Galápagos. The island residents primarily make a living from tourism, fishing and farming.

In the afternoon, we took a long hike around Punta Suarez, and were treated to some spectacular scenery and wildlife. Though the Galápagos has relatively low biodiversity, it has high rates of endemism—organisms separated from their main population and adapted to their environment, eventually changing to become a new species. There are as many as 26 endemic species among the islands including Darwin’s finches, Galápagos giant tortoises, marine iguanas, and Galápagos penguins. This is the only place on earth you can see these animals in their natural habitat. And because Galápagos animals have no instinctual fear towards humans, you closely encounter wildlife. Galápagos National Park rules require visitors stay 6 feet (2 meters) minimum distance from wildlife, and it is unbelievable to be so close to these rare and wild creatures.

We hiked inland to a brackish lagoon to see a flock of American flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber). Dozens of flamingoes were foraging for food in the mud. Their lovely pink coloration is determined by the amount of carotenoid pigment that they ingest in their food sources (algae, crustaceans and tiny plant material); the more carotenoid pigment a flamingo consumes, the more intense their pink color.

I was so excited because I saw my first blue-footed boobies! Their odd name comes from the Spanish '‘bobo’, meaning foolish/clown, on account of their clumsy movement on land. Their most distinctive characteristic is obviously their large blue feet, which play an important role in courtship. Females are thought to select males with brighter feet, as they are an indicator of his fitness and the quality of his genetic material. Thus, males make quite a performance of showing off their feet!

We toured the Charles Darwin Research Station and Museum. I had been really looking forward to this, as the foundation's Executive Director Dr. Arturo Izurieta Valery has been a featured guest speaker onboard the ship and he and his wife were frequently on excursions with me. The mission of the Charles Darwin Foundation is "to provide knowledge and assistance through scientific research and complementary action to ensure the conservation of the environment and biodiversity in the Galapagos Archipelago." Read more about the Charles Darwin Research Station on their website.

I loved seeing all the different species of tortoises in their captive breeding program. They had tortoises at all stages of life from baby to elder. I felt a bit melancholy seeing Lonesome George, though. A male Pinta Island tortoise and the last known individual of the species, George was cared for at the research station for forty years (by the same primary caretaker) until his death in 2012. After his death, Lonesome George was shipped to New York and underwent a taxidermy process by experts at the American Museum of Natural History before being returned to Ecuador. Now a preserved specimen on display, Lonesome George is still an important symbol for conservation efforts in the Galápagos islands and the world.

While adventuring with the support of National Geographic Education and Lindblad Expeditions as a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow Alumna, I had a chance to learn about Lindblad’s education initiatives in Galápagos. First, that afternoon in Santa Cruz, I visited Tomás de Berlanga, a bilingual PreK-12 school that has a project-based approach to learning and a campus fully immersed in nature. I loved the playground: no foam mats or AstroTurf here. The school receives funding from Lindblad Expeditions, including support for its lending library— the first of its kind in Galapagos! I was pleased to bring a few new books I had bought at the Nueva School Book Fair as donations. Second, despite a language barrier, I got to know three teachers from Galapagos that were invited guests on the voyage. In fact, Lindblad Expeditions has sent hundreds of Ecuadorian teachers on expedition in the archipelago over the years. I am proud of this commitment to local education.

Today, was all about trying to find the elusive Galápagos land iguanas (Conolophus subcristatus) on a long hike in the northern part of Santa Cruz island known as Cerro Dragon or "Dragon Hill." The sun was scorching and the dry landscape was covered in sparse stands of cactus and palo santo trees, the latter giving the air a slightly sweet licorice smell. Remember, Santa Cruz is the island with the largest human population in Galápagos, so unfortunately, many domestic animals have gone feral; wild goats, cats, and dogs had been decimating the iguana populations for decades. However, recent efforts of the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galápagos Park Service to re-populate the iguanas and remove feral animals have been effective, and the iguana population has been on a steady increase. We were determined to find some of these dragons!

Today was all about geologic wonders and sweeping vistas while hiking on Bartolome islet. The Galápagos Islands are one of the most active oceanic volcanic regions on Earth, and I was definitely reminded of this while on the near-barren, almost Martian landscape. The islands are on the Nazca tectonic plate, above a hot spot that produces a plume of hot magma, adjacent to a mid-oceanic ridge, atop what's known as the Galápagos Spreading Center. When magma finds a weak spot in the plate above, it rushes to the surface, creating a volcano. The volcano is eventually carried away from the hot spot by plate movement and a newer volcano is created in its place. Thus, over time, the hot spot made the Galápagos archipelago. The Nazca plate is moving in a south-easterly direction, so where are the oldest island in the island chain located? 

Today, I went on a few different hikes in the birder's paradise known as Genovesa island. Because it is somewhat remote, many land species never made their way to this island, allowing birds to dominate. Indeed, thousands of birds nest here. As we approached the island, storm petrels, boobies, and great frigates filled the air. Huge birds walked the shoreline and roosted in the red mangroves lining the coastal trail. In addition, sea lions lumbered on the sand and marine iguanas sunned themselves on rocky tidal pools.

Though they were not very active on land, all the sea lions were very acrobatic underwater! Swimming with them was a blast!

Oh the absolutely magical experience of snorkeling in tropical water and having penguins unexpectedly swim by! This was my favorite moment of the expedition. 

In 2014, I had the opportunity to voyage through Arctic Svalbard as a National-Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions Grosvenor Teacher Fellow (GTF). Exploring the Galápagos as a GTF Alumna is like having a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Twice. Educator-Explorer friends, please read more about this extraordinary professional development program here.

Overall, as I think back to my time on expedition in Galápagos, I have a strong sense of urgency about protecting this incomparable region of our planet and all its natural and cultural treasures. I am now more aware of how the fragile ecosystems of the Galápagos islands are impacted by tourism and under threat from invasive species and climate change. Sailing as a GTF Alumna was a privilege but also a responsibility; I consider myself an ambassador for the Galápagos islands and will do all I can to educate others. In a future blog post, I will be sharing how I have incorporated my expeditionary learning into my classroom and beyond.

I miss our ship the National Geographic Endeavor II and all the incredible crew, naturalists, and fellow travelers. For now, I want to express deep gratitude to leaders at National Geographic Education and Lindblad Expeditions for honoring me with this experience. Also, thank you to all those who made my expedition possible, including my principal, colleagues, and students at the Nueva School. This voyage of discovery is dedicated to them! 

Here's the Motivate for Monarchs! lesson plan I developed, which is aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards and the Common Core State Standards in ELA/Literacy. In it, I've also included many ideas for extensions from planting a butterfly garden to participating in citizen science projects. In addition to the lesson plan, you'll find my Persuasive Letter Rubric and the Background Research Recording Sheet. You have all the resources you need to implement this lesson as soon as tomorrow!

All documents combined in one PDF can be easily downloaded by clicking here. Please contact me if you'd prefer editable documents, for I'm happy to have teachers customize or re-mix this lesson as needed. 

Keep in mind, the framework of this lesson can be used for any conservation issue students are passionate about. Summarizing scientific text with ABT statements and writing persuasive letters are highly transferable skills that help improve science literacy. The lesson could also be a  wonderful interdisciplinary project for science and language arts classes.