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Hi Preeti,

Not sure if this is helpful, since I am a scientist and not actually
affiliated with a museum or science center, but I have organized two
programs very similar to what you've described:

Uintas Pika Watch is a K-12 student citizen science program for monitoring
American pikas in the Uinta mountains of northern Utah. The goal of the
program is two-fold: 1) collect valuable data about the status and
distribution of pikas in this mountain range, and 2) get students thinking
about potential impacts of climate change in their local mountain
ecosystems.

In September, we make several field trips to rock slides along an
elevational gradient with urban 7th grade students-- currently just at one
middle school, but hoping to expand to more in the coming years. Many of
these kids have never been in the mountains before. The kids collect data
on pika occupancy and abundance, temperatures in the rock slides, and
vegetation (ie, potential food resources). They then return to the
classroom, where they analyze differences between different elevations, and
also changes through time. This year, they also worked in teams of 3-5 to
prepare projects about diverse aspects of their research and pika ecology,
which they presented to the biology department at the University of Utah.

I've also done a similar program in Oregon, with a much smaller group of
students at Jane Goodall Environmental Middle School. Each August, a group
of 3-6 incoming 8th graders join me in field work monitoring pika
populations after a large wildfire. These kids collect similar types of
data about pika habitat, analyze differences between sites and patterns of
occupancy through time, and present their results to a group of students,
staff, parents, and local agency partners in Salem at the end of the school
year.

Happy to answer questions, if you'd like more information about either of
these programs.

- Jo





-- 
Johanna Varner
PhD Candidate, Biology
University of Utah
johannavarner.weebly.com


On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 10:47 AM, Preeti Gupta <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
> institutions.
>
> ******************************
***********************************************
>
> Hello:
>
> Does your place have a program where youth work closely with scientists
> and conduct authentic science research? I am specifically searching for
> programs where youth spend more than 50 hours working with the scientist,
> the program is based out of the museum, the youth have to communicate the
> work they did in some sort of paper or presentation, and the program is
> specifically designed for youth who may not ordinarily have access to such
> opportunities. So far I only know of us at AMNH, Yale Peabody and
> Smithsonian.
>
>
> Preeti Gupta
>
> Director of Youth Learning and Research
>
> American Museum of Natural History
>
> 212-769-5172
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
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