CRASH COURSE! Starting Nature's Notebook in a hurry..

[LoriAnne Barnett]

Greetings Everyone, 

We at the USA National Phenology Network’s National Coordinating Office all hope you are managing as best as you can under the current circumstances. Whether you are a program manager having to cancel the wonderful events scheduled this spring, an educator having to manage students remotely, a parent having to find academic things for your kids to do, or a land manager reliant upon now missing volunteers to help you with site-based tasks, I feel your pain. This is hard. 

Over the last week I have received many requests to help people quickly get started with Nature’s Notebook monitoring with groups. Nature’s Notebook is an activity that can be done in individually but also as a “team or a group” while maintaining social or physical distancing through our Group monitoring program. I’ve even received a few requests to do an extra cohort of our LPL Certification Program. 

To that end I think the easiest thing to do is for me to offer a one-hour crash course for getting started with Nature’s Notebook. Join me on Tuesday, March 31st, 2020 at noon Pacific, 1pm Mountain, 2pm Central, and 3pm Eastern via zoom. Here is the zoom link and password:

Join Zoom Meeting

https://arizona.zoom.us/j/844887560?pwd=YWU3VXlJWjQxc3Z0TlVMMXFybjdKQT09

Password: 056653

Regardless of your location or site or the work you do, I can provide some quick tips on: 

• How to create a group site and monitoring program that can be contributed to by multiple observers
• How to engage people collectively, yet remotely, in making observations 
• Which activities and curriculum might be most relevant to different types of learning environments, what can be shared with parents, partners, or volunteers who need to engage people remotely
• Moving any scheduled Nature’s Notebook trainings online for the near term

If you have questions that you’d like to see answered on the call, please email them to me (lori...@usanpn.org) ahead of time and I will work them in. 

I will spend the first part (approximately 20 minutes) of the call doing a demo and sharing information on how to get started quickly, and then the second part of the call will be open space discussion. That way, if people just want the quick-and-dirty info, I’ll provide that first. We can also make space for holding community, networking, and support as needed. I will record the call so you can tune in later. 

Also, resources are always available on our website about how to begin on our Start a Phenology Program page. And the summer short course and fall certification course will go on as scheduled in July and September-November, respectively. 

In the meantime, I hope you can spend some time outside, whatever that looks like for you, and slow down to pay attention to the onset of spring. Let us know how we can help and hope to see you next week. Be well!

Best, la

[LoriAnne Barnett]

Hi Everyone,

I hope you had a terrific weekend and are remaining well.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I've posted the recording of last week's crash course on our YouTube page. It is about 20 minutes long.

I've also created a new curated play list of all of the videos we've got that will help folks who are local phenology leaders get started. The play list is now embedded on our Local Phenology Program Page. There are 16 videos total and several are only a minute or two because they show you how to do things on Nature's Notebook online.

Don't forget, if you have questions about anything post them on the forum! We can all help each other out!

Best,

la