Educators

Schools can be an excellent place to run camera traps because they can serve as good habitat for mammals and can be integrated into school curricula or after school programs for students conduct authentic scientific investigations. Camera traps can be run directly on school property for students to understand what animals live around their school and come out when kids go home. Camera traps can be also be taken home by students to be run in their backyards, especially if there are no or few good locations on school property.

What eMammal offers

eMammal scientists and educators have created a series of lesson plans using eMammal camera trap protocols and aligning to the Next Generation Science Standards and specific state standards. These lesson plans are free for teachers to download and use in their classroom, and can be modified for individual classroom needs or interests. We encourage teachers and students to ask their own questions about the mammals in their area, and use our data analysis tools to explore new questions that may come up. We have developed lesson plans in science, math, and language arts, and are continually adding more. In addition to lesson plans, we have kid-friendly field guides and a species identification game. For teachers, we have videos on how to ask scientific questions with camera trap data and powerpoint presentations introducing students to eMammal research available for use in the classroom.

eMammal software makes identifying the species and noticing patterns of animals easy for kids, while making the data accessible and easy to manage for classroom analysis. Kids need to only ID animals in the photos through pointing and clicking (there is no need to type and enter times and dates). Data are summarized in an Excel spreadsheet accessible through the eMammal website which can be used for students to conduct their own analyses by hand to understand how data are used to understand mammal diversity and activity patterns. 

There are a lot of exciting discoveries to be made from analyzing camera trap data making camera trap studies at schools an authentic scientific process for students as they contribute to a real scientific database. Teachers sometimes worry that camera traps will not collect animal data. These deployments are still interesting scientifically as students can try to understand why there are no animals at this location, but some at others lending to authentic scientific investigations. The eMammal website has automated data analysis tools where students can explore their own data or other data more in-depth with just a few clicks. Therefore questions that arise from data can be further explored at larger scales. As more schools participate in eMammal, students will be able to make comparisons between their school and others to examine difference. Students can also compare their school habitat with natural areas to see how their school measures up as wildlife habitat.

Costs

Schools can purchase camera traps and accessories (e.g. locks, memory cards, etc.) to run eMammal at their school. To see which camera type to buy, click on this link. Schools may purchase multiple cameras, but a lot can be done with just one, as it can be moved to many different locations throughout the school year. Please work with an eMammal contact to secure a grant for covering miscellaneous eMammal costs. Some projects will provide educators with camera traps.

Your Responsibility

It is the teacher’s responsibility to coordinate with an eMammal program (link to educational programs) to initiate project and have deployments created, run camera traps, and upload photos for experts to review. We highly recommend including students in all aspects of the project from camera set-up to uploads where possible. We highly recommend that teachers preview photos in eMammal software before students view photos as camera traps may capture human activity that is inappropriate for students to view. If teachers find such photos, it is important they delete those photos from the folder and remove all from the sequence (e.g. remove 1/5 to 5/5) so students and researchers do not think a mistake was made in the data importation and upload process. For logistical advice on how to run in eMammal in the classroom, refer to our how to documentation and curricula.

Contact

If you are interested in running eMammal in your classroom, contact Stephanie Schuttler to see if we can help you initiate a project.