Students are naturals when it comes to asking questions. Kristina, a 10th-grader in Oregon, was curious about why fewer Dark-eyed Juncos seemed to be visiting her school's bird-feeding station than in past years. A group of middle-school students in Utah wondered whether different kinds of birds would visit feeders in different habitats.

Photo credit: Kate Humason

Students in Ms. Humason's 7th-grade class at Minnehaha Academy, Minneapolis, MN, pursue answers to their own questions by gathering data on birds.

And Arron, an 8th-grader in New York, wanted to know whether his dog was affecting the number of birds at his feeder.

Classroom FeederWatch (CFW), helps take students' curiosity to the next step by engaging them in the process of scientific inquiry to pursue the answers. As part of CFW, Kristina collected and analyzed data from several years of FeederWatch counts. She determined that Dark-eyed Junco visits at her school feeder were declining, coincident with the construction of a nearby housing development. The students in Utah conducted a research project and found that a distinctly different set of bird species visited feeders in a shrubby habitat compared with a forested habitat. Arron devised a protocol to count birds in the presence and absence of his dog and discovered a clear decline in bird numbers when his dog was nearby.

CFW reaches hundreds of classrooms each year, helping educators teach basic scientific

concepts and fostering a student-driven approach that stimulates a deeper understanding of the subjects that students choose to investigate. The CFW curriculum complies with the National Science Education Standards, developed by the National Research Council and implemented by science teachers across the country (see sidebar). An important goal of the standards is to provide students with a deeper understanding of scientific concepts by engaging them in scientific inquiry.

The inquiry-based approach begins with the raw curiosity and passion of students to explore and learn more about their surroundings. It guides students on how to make observations, collect and analyze data, interpret the results, and publish findings—helping them learn lifelong skills in the process. As students formulate and answer their own questions, they learn how to make decisions and think critically. As they delve into their research question, they increase their understanding of the scientific process and topics related to their question. Group discussions and collaborative projects strengthen social and communication skills. Students gain valuable writing and public speaking experiences by presenting their work to classmates and submitting papers to Classroom Birdscope.

CFW helps teachers use an inquiry- based approach by providing a curriculum that offers both structure and flexibility according to the teacher's needs and provides numerous possibilities for interdisciplinary teaching. Simply by providing students with the opportunity to study birds and encouraging their natural tendency to ask questions, teachers can lay the foundation for a lifelong inquiry approach to exploring the world. “CFW is the best way I know to help kids understand the nature of science,” says Mike Ashton, an 8th-grade teacher from Pennsylvania. “I never expected so many of my kids to get excited about birds. CFW really motivates them.”