Education
classroom

#Welcome On this page you will find programming, activities, and resources related to formal and informal education. From here, you can: Join the conversation Learn how to integrate community science practices into your classroom Browse community science lesson plans from the Public Lab team Find activities for your classroom from the community Ask a question, answer a question, or follow future questions on education ## What Does Community Science Look Like in Your Classroom? Public Lab defines community science as community-led scientific exploration and investigation to address community-defined questions, allowing for engagement in the entirety of the scientific process. Unlike traditional citizen science, Public Lab’s approach emphasizes local and traditional knowledge, community ownership of research, and working together in scalable networks to encourage collaborative learning and civic engagement. [![Screen_Shot_2021-04-15_at_6.34.42_PM.png](/i/43663)](/i/43663?s=o) Classroom community science projects are youth-led with an approach that emphasizes participant and community ownership of research, from question identification through analysis, and working together to encourage collaborative learning and civic engagement. After identifying their interests, students conduct research as they join the efforts of people and organizations already working on these issues and take the lead in aspects of study design, data collection, and analysis. The data collected from these student-designed projects supports community action and civic engagement. [Read more about integrating community science methodologies into your classroom here](https://publiclab.org/notes/mimiss/04-16-2021/community-science-in-the-classroom). **** ## How Can You Get Involved? We're looking to build a strong community of practice where educators of all experiences can share resources, knowledge, and lend a hand. Here are some ways that you can help build Public Lab's educational community ### Join the Conversation Get notified about new #education posts by subscribing to related tags. Click the button below, and subscribe to tags like "education", "classroom", "lesson", as well as other topics that you're interested in. Subscribe ### Try These Lessons in Your Classroom and Share Your Experience After using one of these activities in person, let us know how it goes in the comments. We appreciate your feedback and encourage you to share how you modify the lesson to better fit your classroom. - [Classroom Community Science](https://publiclab.org/wiki/student-led-community-science-in-the-classroom-a-curriculum): An adaptable curricula for bringing student-led environmental projects into your classroom. - [Messages from the Mississippi](https://publiclab.org/wiki/messages-from-the-mississippi-lesson-plans): A 6-part series investigating microplastics in local bodies of water culminating in student artwork and advocacy. - [Wetlands Remote Sensing & Management](https://publiclab.org/wiki/wetlands-lesson-plans): Hands on lesson plans to introduce students in grades 8-12 to oil spill cleanup, monitoring wetlands, and managing natural resources. - [Air Quality Class](https://publiclab.org/wiki/air-quality-class): An 8-week program in which students work with air quality sensors to monitor indoor air pollutants. Participants catalog and analyze the environmental air pollutant hazards that affect neighborhood homes and will share their findings with other community members ________________ ## Activities Here are some different activities particularly suited for use in the classroom: [activities:education] **** ## Questions [questions:education] **** ## Resources To learn more about the methods, successes, and challenges in developing these programs, check out our reports and evaluations from these funded projects: 2021 National Academy of Sciences Project Evaluation: Community Science in the Classroom 2022 EPA Impact Report: Messages from the Mississippi 2022 EPA Environmental Education Evaluation: Messages from the Mississippi **For more information on funding resources for educators, [click here](http://publiclab.org/wiki/funding-sources-for-science-teachers) ** [![PartsNCraftsSpectralTurntable.jpg](/i/47464)](/i/47464?s=o)...


Author Comment Last activity Moderation
straylight "thanks ygzstc, that makes sense. I think that the approximation that relative intensity measured from the scope can be used in place of the log rel..." | Read more » almost 9 years ago
ygzstc "Yes the Beer-Lambert Law is based on -log(I/Io) but it's applicable for a single wavelength value. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer%E2%80%93Lamb..." | Read more » almost 9 years ago
warren "It's odd -- I see the graphs. Straylight, can you contact web@publiclab.org so we can figure out what's going on there? " | Read more » almost 9 years ago
straylight "Thanks for the question. My apologies that all of the graphs appear to have vanished (they have for me). Not sure why, maybe a hosting issue. Anyw..." | Read more » almost 9 years ago
anjohn12 "Quick question, I'm trying to do something similar for a school project. Shouldn't the absorbance of the sample be the negative log of the percent ..." | Read more » almost 9 years ago
msysinfo "I need to measure oil concentration in a water mixture. Can a SPECTROMETER be used to measure the oil concentration? If it a solute that dissolves ..." | Read more » about 9 years ago
straylight "Good points and I understand how you feel, coming at his from a chemistry teachers viewpoint myself. I guess it depends on what experiments and dem..." | Read more » almost 10 years ago
srpratt "I'm new to the cellphone-becomes-a-photospec phenomenon, as I was told about this by a colleague. As an AP Chem teacher, I'm looking for hacks to ..." | Read more » almost 10 years ago
ichinarayan "ok thanks so much " | Read more » about 10 years ago
straylight "In spectral workbench, when you are looking at a spectra, there is an option to export and save the data in a variety of formats, including xml and..." | Read more » about 10 years ago
ichinarayan "wow beyond belief. i thought it was complicated listing program. and how do you exported the spectra image into csv form? thanks a lot " | Read more » about 10 years ago
straylight "Thanks for the question ichinarayan, I exported the spectra in csv form into microsoft excel. From there I selected the wavelengths I wanted to st..." | Read more » over 10 years ago
ichinarayan "what software do you use for your analisis program used to generated graph? " | Read more » over 10 years ago
warren "This is fantastic to see carried out so methodically. " | Read more » over 11 years ago