Explore Phenology with Seed Balls

Lesson plan
Grades K-2
Outdoor

The following activity is an introductory lesson in the basics of observation skills for young children. In this activity, students will use their senses to observe different plants. Then, they will make seed balls out of clay that can be planted at your school or brought home.

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30 million phenology records collected by Nature's Notebook observers

Tue, Aug 09, 2022
News

This week, we reached a significant new milestone - thirty million phenology records submitted to the National Phenology Database! The 30 millionth record was collected via Nature’s Notebook, the USA-NPN’s plant and animal phenology data collection platform, by Nika Gonzaga, a freshman in Desert View High School's Honors Biology Program in Tucson, Arizona. Nika observed young leaves on a desert willow tree. Nika said "as a freshman, this is my first time ever gathering research like this. It was enjoyable and a very simple task.

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Citizen science data spanning two centuries illuminate changes in plant phenology

Fri, Jul 22, 2022
Publication Summary

The authors compared a historical dataset of plant phenology recorded in New York state from 1826-1872 to contemporary observations collected through Nature’s Notebook from 2009-2017. On average, plants flower 10.5 days earlier and leaf out 19 days earlier now than 200 years ago. The authors found impacts of urbanization, greater advancement of flowering timing in earlier season species and greater advancement in trees and shrubs than forbs, and greater advancement in insect-pollinated species. The standardized observations you record in Nature’s Notebook are invaluable for understanding the direction and magnitude of changes in the timing of life cycle events of plants and animals.

Project Overview:

Learn more about these species on the species profile pages and Pheno Forecast pages linked below. You'll find a phenophase photo guide linked at the bottom of each species profile page to help you with identification of key life cycle events, such as active caterpillars and active adults. Each Pheno Forecast page shows maps of which locations have reached key life cycle event stages this year, and gives information on why managers care about that species. 

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HOW TO PARTICIPATE...

1. Obtain your cloned plants.
Cloned lilacs are available for purchase from JungSeed.com at a cost of $12 per plant. 

If you prefer to track plants which are already established at your site, we also welcome observations on common lilac (Syringa vulgaris). 

Project Overview:

How to Participate

1. Join Nature's Notebook. If you haven't already, create a Nature's Notebook account. If you need more details on getting started, take the Observer Certification Course at learning.usanpn.org. You can set up a phenology monitoring site in your backyard or another location that you frequent. 

2. Select one or more of the following species to track:

Project Overview:

How to Participate

1. Join Nature's Notebook. If you haven't already, create a Nature's Notebook account. If you need more details on getting started, take the Observer Certification Course at learning.usanpn.org. 

Project Overview:

How to Participate:

1. Select one (or more) individual plants to track. We are interested in any species on the Nature's Notebook list from the genera listed below:

Project Overview:

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

1. Create an account in Nature's Notebook and create a site for monitoring phenology. Need a tip on where to find these plants? Visit the University of Minnesota's Find Pesky Plants webpage. If you need more details on getting started, take the Observer Certification Course at learning.usanpn.org.

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