What's Your Nature?
Become a Nature Up North explorer to share your encounters with wild things and wild places in New York's North Country. Post your wildlife sightings, landscape shots, photos from your outings, and even your organization's events!
Citizen Science Introduction Worksheet
This worksheet walks students through one of 5 different citizen science projects, listed below. Assign students one of the projects listed to research, and instruct them to fill out the worksheet as they learn about the project. Students may work in groups or alone. This lesson is meant to be adaptable; different projects may be swapped in depending on your goals.
- Monitor My Maple (Nature Up North): natureupnorth.org/monitor-my-maple-project
- Water Monitoring (Nature Up North): natureupnorth.org/watermonitoring
- iNaturalist, California Academy of Sciences/National Geographic: inaturalist.org/
- eBird (Cornell Lab of Ornithology): ebird.org/home
- Nature’s Notebook (National Phenology Network): usanpn.org/natures_notebook
Allen Pond, Clare
Ther is a half-mile trail from the gate to the pond. I did a bushwhack around the pond and ended up with a two-mile round trip hike. It is easy up until the bushwhacking, then it gets tough. Just before the pond is a maple tree that had been struck by lightning and burned out from the inside, but left the outer wood living. It was plenty big enough for me to fit inside with my pack.
Burntbridge pond bushwhack
Burntbridge Pond is a fairly common destination from the Cranberry Lake direction (NW). I approached from the east on the Massawepie road. Most of it is following old logging roads, but the last half mile is a trailless bushwhack that gets more difficult as you get closer to the pond. If you are not comfortable with map and compass work, take the conventional route from the Cranberry Lake side. It is about five and a half miles round trip.
Winding Falls- Piercefield
Also known locally as Pa falls, as there are some monuments to someones "Pa".This is on the Bog River and isn't very traveled. Round trip is about six miles.
Maple Hill Trail - Aldrich
A nice hike to the Middle Branch of the Oswegatchie River. This long-abandoned trail was once a logging railroad for the first 1.5 miles. Altogether it is around 5-miles round trip.
Bridge Brook Pond- Piercefield
A nice paddle to remote bridge brook pond. We put in Tupper Lake at Bog River Falls and paddled 3 miles to the carry to Bridge Brook. The pond is remote and offers views of the fire towers on Mt Arab and Mt Morris. Around 9 miles round trip.
A foggy morning on Streeter Lake
I brisk 47-degree morning on Streeter Lake was perfect for an early paddle. Loons, pitcher plants, and sundew plants made it even better.
2019 Summer Teacher Workshop
2019 Summer Teacher Workshop for K-12 educators to show them all of the resources available through Nature Up North and introduce them to our citizen science projects.
Lesson Plan: Intro to Citizen Science
This lesson serves as an introduction to Citizen Science, including a short reading and some activities and discussion points. The lesson uses Monitor My Maple as an example, but could easily be adapted for other citizen science projects.
- Reading: Citizen Scientists: Be a Part of Scientific Discovery from Your Own Backyard (Chapter One) by Loree Griffin Burns
- Full sciencenetlinks.com Citizen Science Lesson Guide: http://sciencenetlinks.com/lessons/citizen-scientists-be-part-scientific-discovery-your-own-backyard/
- Nature Up North Monitor My Maple Tutorial Video (www.natureupnorth.org/monitor-my-maple-project)
- Citizen Science Read-and-Report Worksheet