Citizen Scientists and Artists: Integrating Arts and Technology to Teach the Effects of Climate Change on Bird Migration

Ways to incorporate climate change into K-12 curricula are of growing interest to many science educators. The International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space (ICARUS) examines animal and bird migrations as a lens to understand climate change aiding educators with its emphasis on technological imagining in science and visual arts teaching and learning. This article presents an interdisciplinary unit pertaining to bird migration and climate change that integrates the arts and technology by placing upper-elementary students in the position of being citizen scientists and artists, leading to a culminating art installation project. The unit shows how a variety of digital resources available in an online environment allow students to become resourceful problem solvers, using technology to create and collaborate. Citizen science and the visual arts enable students to envision and creatively document evidence to inform solutions designed to assist in altering climate change. Taken together, this effort supports students to learn scientific concepts of altered bird migration due to climate change by investigating through the integration of the visual arts and technology