Dear Educator,

Biodiversity Counts is an exciting new approach to biodiversity education in middle schools developed by the American Museum of Natural History. It takes students into the field. By gathering data right in their immediate environment, students will develop a local understanding of the concepts and issues of biodiversity.

Biodiversity Counts is based on the conviction that students learn science best by engaging in authentic scientific research. The direct connection that this project creates between the work of scientists at the American Museum of Natural History and the work of students nationwide affords a unique learning environment for the middle school student. Students will engage in all of the activities and utilize the techniques that the scientists and staff members at the American Museum of Natural History employ to identify plants and arthropods and create an exhibition.

We hope that Biodiversity Counts inspires some students to pursue science as a career. More important, we hope that it increases the awareness and consciousness of the biodiversity crisis and forms a growing community of young citizens who will be responsible stewards of the planet.

Ellen V. Futter
President
American Museum of Natural History

Biodiversity Counts is a group of supplementary curriculum materials for middle schools that can be used in conjunction with a core life science curriculum or other biodiversity and environmental curriculum materials. It is an inquiry-based program grounded in hands-on science education that promotes collaborative learning. The goal of the project is to introduce students to the vast diversity of living things, especially plants and arthropods (a group that includes insects and spiders). Biodiversity Counts allows students to learn science through the direct observation of nature. They learn how Museum scientists conduct scientific investigations and then apply this knowledge to their own fieldwork.

Students go out of the classroom to conduct a field inventory at a site near their school and use fundamental scientific research skills: observation, data collection, classification and identification, data analysis, and the communication of research findings. Most important, the project offers an exciting and creative context for involving students in the scientific process while introducing them to the rich diversity and beauty of their local ecosystems.

These supplementary curriculum materials are supported by reading selections (essays, how-tos, profiles, and other science articles), and Web links (for other biodiversity-related books, classroom materials, and Web sites), dichotomous keys and other tools, and professional development tools.

Biodiversity Counts was developed by a national team of teachers working with curriculum developers, educators, and scientists at the Museum and informed by the results of field testing in schools across the country.

Why did the American Museum of Natural History develop a biodiversity supplementary curriculum?

The American Museum of Natural History is a world renowned center for scientific research. Over the past 130 years the Museum has proved itself a leader in interpreting science for the public in its exhibition halls, and in providing educational programming for a very diverse audience in the New York City area. We have a scientific research staff of over 200 who take part in more than 100 expeditions around the planet each year in an effort to discover, describe, and analyze the natural world.

The Museum believes it has a fundamental responsibility to raise the level of public understanding of the importance of biodiversity and its loss, and to suggest means to protect and conserve it. We are trying to achieve this in different ways. Through the Museum's Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, we are rededicating our efforts to carry out effective research that tackles the global biodiversity crisis. In May 1998 we opened the Hall of Biodiversity, a permanent exhibition produced by a collaborative team of Museum scientists, exhibition, and education staff to increase awareness of biodiversity. We have established the National Center for Science Literacy, Education, and Technology to develop materials and programs to take the Museum's messages, including biodiversity, beyond our walls and out to a national audience by sharing the Museum's extensive resources, scientific research, exhibitions, and the specimens and artifacts of the collection.

The AMNH connection

Biodiversity Counts models the fieldwork carried out by the Museum's own systematic biologists. Students read accounts by Museum scientists and other staff and their colleagues at the New York Botanical Garden, to learn how to choose a study site and identify, collect, and care for specimens. By structuring the project in this way we aim to reinforce the idea that students learn science best by engaging in authentic scientific work. Profiles of these personnel offer students insight into the diverse career opportunities in science and the interpretation of science and the variety of ways people come to science as a career.

Biodiversity Counts is unique among other life and environmental science programs because of its connection to the Museum-developed and produced here at the Museum based on the actual work of working scientists. Unlike programs which ask students to collect data for scientists, Biodiversity Counts focuses on student learning. All the activities that students are engaged in, individually and collectively, address the national science standards. They also emulate the core activities of research in systematic biology carried out by Museum scientists in the following ways:

• Hypothesis forming
• Observation: recording measurements, notes, and drawings in a scientific field journal
• Data collection, including building and maintaining specimen collections for study
• Classification/sorting/identifying
• Data analysis
• Discussion of findings and interpretation of data with colleagues
• Curating and preparing an exhibition

Scientists not only record data by writing their observations, taking measurements, and collecting specimens, but also by drawing. Representational drawings are used in scientific study both as an additional observational tool and as a recording device. Biodiversity Counts includes instruction on the techniques of scientific illustration. Students can use the illustrations as part of their reports, journals, presentations, or exhibitions.