The answers to these questions will help students to understand and appreciate species that live within their watershed habitat and rely on some of the same resources that they do. In Connect the Species students will work with their classmates to use what they have learned about humans and identify connections between humans and other species (from Species Investigation) in their watershed.

In Connect the Species, students describe connections among the species in their watershed habitats (including humans) and create a food web to model these connections. Students make deeper connections as they explore how their plant or animal species interacts with humans through the food web. They gain a new perspective and understanding of the species’ needs in relation to their own.

Species Swap gives students the opportunity to share the results of their scientific research on a species that lives in their watershed. Working as a class, students make connections among the different species that they studied and draw conclusions about how these species interact within their watershed habitats. Connect the Species then guides students to make deeper connections as they explore how their species, and humans, are connected through the food web.

Students who have participated in the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s LabVenture! program have had practice at sharing their results in a large group, with their peers, scientist mentors, and their teachers. Students who have not participated in LabVenture! may need additional structure and guidance.

Allowing students to choose the species they will study gives them ownership of their research and helps them feel more invested in the project. It is important that teachers carefully guide students’ investigations. By carefully creating student teams, you can tailor this investigation to meet the needs of students of different skill and ability levels. The way the investigation and research questions are written, students can go in-depth with their research, or provide simple answers. Encourage students to do what they will be successful with, but also to push their comfort zone as they dig into their scientific research!

To help prepare students to locate and count the number of different species in their habitat, students play a Spot the Difference game. They build the careful observation skills they need to look at similar species within the same category (different types of trees, bugs, birds, etc.) and determine how many from each category they see. This activity does not ask students to identify species, just to determine how many different species they see.

During this fun, outdoor habitat exploration, students may become interested in a certain species or category of species. This helps them choose one species they want to study in depth for their Species Investigation .

To prep for this activity, visit Taking Students Outside for tips on how to create a successful outdoor learning experience for your students and yourself.

This reflection process prepares students to do similar scientific work studying a species within their own watershed that they identified in We’re Going on a Species Hunt. Teams of students choose one species to study in depth to better understand its role, the resources it needs, and its interactions with humans. Students then share their species research findings with their classmates in Species Swap.

Working together as a class and using published definitions, students will develop their own definition and understanding of the term “habitat.” Once students have established what a habitat is, they will explore their study site and list all of the habitats (and microhabitats) that they observe. These explorations may happen in person by going outside, or virtually through the power of imagination.

Students’ experience(s) will result in a class list of all the different habitats (and microhabitats) that exist within their study site. This will help to guide students (and teachers) in choosing habitats to study further in What Lives Here and We’re Going on an Species Hunt.

Students play a modified “Dictionary” (or Balderdash) game to see how well their methods stack up to actual methods that scientists use. Do they still like their own approaches best? These research scenarios prepare students to tackle the different components of their own upcoming Species Investigations in the All My Watershed Neighbors Watershed Experience.