A while back I posted a discussion topic about identifying all the species/locations that you ate at breakfast. I think that might make an interesting class project that would work at many grade levels.
To make it fairer and less socially stigmatizing for certain students, perhaps dissect the school cafeteria menu in the same way.
It’s getting kids to be enthusiastic about making connections, right? How about a species analysis of a popular book or show?
Example: Marc Brown’s ‘Arthur’ series. Ask kids to jot down the animals shown (characters and otherwise) that they see when viewing (at home, I presume?), compile a class list and set about locating this list’s natural roots on a large world map using iNat as a reference location.
Of course, you’d want them to include interesting facts, and some basic identity keys that they discover.
Another possibility is to build a trophic chain/net when a particular observation is linked to a “feeding on” or similar field. The problem is that only a few observations have got this field linked to another species.
The biggest trophic net I have seen is build here.
there’s a guy who uses items from nature to make miniature humanoid figures he calls Becorns, and then he photographs them with natural subjects to tell stories. i think the concept of using a miniature avatar in your photos could be a fun way to get people to learn how to observe more closely. if nothing else, a miniature avatar constructed to a specific size could actually be a good scale reference for observing. but beyond that, i think a miniature avatar could be constructed to convey information about a plant that typically couldn’t be conveyed well in a photo. for example, if you come across a particularly fragrant plant, you could have your miniature avatar smell the plant, with an appropriate expression to convey how the plant smells. or if the underside of a leaf is more interesting than the top of a leaf, you could have your avatar look under the leaf, revealing part of of the underside, with a surprised expression on the avatar’s face.
If you are training folks to overcome “plant blindness”, you can give them a challenge of making observations of plant features. For example, opposite, alternate, and whorled leaves. Leaflets. Needles. And so on. When you consider all the options for morphology, margin and venation you have a lot of things to look for. And that’s just leaves!
To gameify the challenge, you can create bingo cards. I’ve used this bingo card generator for make-my-own bing cards. This bingo card generator allows you to use your own word list and randomizes the placement so you can print out many different versions. The more words you add, the more possible versions you have.