K-12 phenology lessons for the phenocam project

In the fall of 2011, the Ashburnham- Westminster Regional School District became the first of five schools to join Dr. Andrew Richardson’s Phenocam Network with the installation of a digital phenocam on the roof of Overlook Middle School in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. As a part of the Phenocam project, students at the K-12 level have expanded the scope of phenological monitoring that is part of the Harvard Forest Schoolyard Ecology Program protocol, Buds, Leaves, and Global Warming. In this protocol, students work with Dr. John O’Keefe to monitor buds and leaves on schoolyard trees to determine the length of the growing season. Lessons are being developed for comparing student data on budburst, color change, and leaf drop to phenocam images in Ashburnham and other locations throughout North America, GCC (Green Chromatic Coordinate) graphs extracted from the images, and satellite data. Lessons addressing map scale and Urban Heat Island effect will also be available for teachers.