Citizen Scientists: Be a Part of Scientific Discovery from Your Own Backyard

By Loree Griffin Burns and Ellen Harasimowicz

Anyone can get involved in gathering data for ongoing, actual scientific studies such as the Audubon Bird Count and FrogWatch USA. Just get out into a field, urban park, or your own backyard. You can put your nose to a monarch pupa or listen for raucous frog calls. You can tally woodpeckers or sweep the grass for ladybugs. This book, full of engaging photos and useful tips, will show you how.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Feb 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466809147

Loree Griffin Burns

LOREE GRIFFIN BURNS, Ph.D., did her doctoral at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The author of Beetle Busters, Tracking Trash, and The Hive Detectives, she is an award-winning writer whose books for young people have won many accolades, including ALA Notable designations, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book Award, an IRA Children’s Book Award, a Green Earth Book Award and two Science Books & Films (SB&F) Prizes. Loree holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and her books draw heavily on both her passion for science and nature and her experiences as a working scientist. She lives with her husband and their three kids in a farmhouse in central New England, where she gardens, keeps chickens, and writes about science and scientists. She likes to think that one day she’ll fill the big old barn on their property with horses. Learn more about Loree at loreegriffinburns.com and follow her on Twitter @loreegburns.

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Reviews for Citizen Scientists

[hsbrouss · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Citizen Scientists by Loree Burns is a great picture trade book on how we are able to be scientists on our own through on our own exploration of nature. This book is beautiful and has amazing photographs. What I really enjoyed about this book is how it can be used in almost any classroom. It gives activities for every season and since it provides this, almost any teacher or parent in any setting can use this book and then move outside of the classroom to do the activities suggested. I could see this book being used in an outdoor classroom. The examples are: summer, ladybugs, fall-butterflying, winter-birding, and spring-frogging. The book is educational. Throughout the great photographs, there are mini quizzes to assess for understanding. The photographs also depict all kinds of students, races, with parents, without, working together, etc. This is important to evaluate when reading with your students. Are all types of students included in the audience? This can be shown through the photographs.The author has a very conversational tone that makes the book very user friendly. It as if you can read her text and go along outside. This is going to be very appealing for students of many ages. She further demonstrates this by writing some text in second person. Kids will know it's for them and they will enjoy the suggestions. A text that's easy to read and has great information will be taken well.As a math teacher, I really liked the data collection aspect of this book. Especially the winter activity of counting the migration and collecting data. That's such a good idea for all students. This book could be used in my classroom. We could do some data tracking outside of some wildlife and then convert the data into charts, or find some central tendency numbers. This type of book would be huge for common core curriculum. It would also engage my students to collect data and not even realize that we're doing math. That's the trick!So many books are interesting and get you wanting to do things, but what this book provides is a practical application. Everyone can do this! This makes this book a great read and something that all teachers should have on their bookshelf.

[lbblackwell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an interactive science book with plenty of ideas and resources that engages you as the reader, addressing you directly, and makes you feel as though you are on the journey catching butterflies, bird-watching, frogging, and ladybugging. The pictures are fantastic, and each section is color-coded creating an easy way to go back to a particular section. A great choice for a science classroom/unit!!

[angelina0justice · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It has taken me forever to get around to doing this review. But it is not because the book was hard to read. It is exactly because it is so well done that I'm just now doing a review.

Our Summer Reading theme next year is Feed Your Brain. It is going to center around the broad theme of science. As soon as I received this book and realized how great it was, I started taking notes and adapting the sections into library programs. I have already designed an entire program series pulled from the pages of this book.

I've even made a budget list of the supplies I will need.

This book is so perfect. It caters to families, teachers, librarian, naturalists, budding scientists and anyone who wonders about the natural world.

I love the way the Burns gives us both a first person story scenario and 1st person experience in each section. The When You Go segment and the Quick Quiz help make this a kid friendly book.

The When You Go segment always features a brief advice section and comprehensive list of supplies that will be needed. One of my favorites was the Bird Count list. It indicated that a notebook and pencil were needed. Then it shared under that heading that ink doesn't flow well in cold temperatures. Science and pragmatism in one.

The Quick Quiz provides a challenge for the individual reader or a game for two or more. An added bonus is that it teaches readers to refer to additional information found elsewhere in the book.

Burns also inserts prompts elsewhere in the book. For example, on page 31 she is wrapping up the informational/first person experience section about the Christmas Bird Count and inserts a statement about a variety of other bird watching groups. Then indicates that you can find more information on these programs in the back of the book. She is training the reader to utilize all the resources her book has and preparing them to do the same with future books that may not tell the reader, directly, to access the information contained at the end of a book.

This book is a great resource and would make a great gift to any outdoor explorer or scientist. For a family trying to get your kids unglued from the TV or video game, this book might be the answer and it is extremely family friendly.

[nataliaanishchenko · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A beautiful book full of great nature adventures for curious kids who love to explore the world around them. From season to season there so many things for kids to do and to observe and learn about: Winter is for birding, Spring is for frogging, Summer is for ladybugging, and Fall is for butterflying.

[abbylibrarian_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is a great resource for anyone wanting to get kids excited about practicing science. Loree Griffin Burns presents four nature projects - one for each season - in which kids and families can contribute to ongoing scientific research. Capturing and tagging monarch butterflies, counting birds seen in the wild, studying frogs, and hunting for species of ladybugs. All four projects are real science research that kids and families can contribute information to. In each section, Burns gives some background about the animals being studied, the particular projects citizen scientists can contribute to, and additional resources to get you started. This is an awesome book for families with budding naturalists and for teachers looking for hands-on science ideas!

[sullywriter_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful book for encouraging children to discover and explore nature and science in their own backyards.

[mdonley_6 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A really great science how-to/hands-on book. The book is divided into the four seasons. Students can track an animal each season. For example in the winter birds are counted and in springtime frog calls are studied. In the summer ladybugs are documented and in the fall butterflies are tagged. A lot of information is presented and there are many great photographs of the animals and how to perform the activities. The book focuses on an introduction to science, especially nature, and will keep the students interested. This book could be used in multiple age groups.

[smoore75 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Citizen Scientists is a great book to get kids involved in becoming "scientists." The book is divided into the four seasons. For each season, kids are encouraged to track, count, or tag a specific animal. In the Fall, Monarch butterflies are captured and tagged; in the Winter, birds are counted; in the Spring, listening to frog calls to determine the type of frogs; and in the Summer, different types ladybugs are collected and counted. Because the book is written in second person, I feel kids would feel more connected and responsible. The author provides many tips for these young scientists from how to tell the difference between male and female Monarch butterflies to how tell the difference between frogs sounds. I really enjoyed this book and loved how it was broken up. There is a very helpful Table of Contents. Inserted information between each season tells of a watch group for each animal and how to get in touch and obtain materials. The book ends with many more resources and a very helpful index. Highly recommend. I'm thinking of doing the ladybug project with my kids this summer. The book is illustrated with brightly colored photographs of all the animals discussed and many photos of kids being scientists.