Make-It Monday
September Phenology Chart
Something is different when you go outside now.
You can smell it, hear it, feel it in the air. What is it?
It’s the changing of the seasons.
From one season to another, nature undergoes subtle changes that occur over a period of time.
The study of when those changes occur is called phenology.
When do the first leaves change color?
What is the first day all the trees have lost their leaves?
When did the first birds start flying south?
Keeping track of when these changes occur is important in this time of changing climate. You can help scientists study climate change by conducting some citizen science of your own. You’ll be learning more about your natural environment AND developing your observation skills at the same time!
Today’s Make-It Monday is a PDF file for recording your observations of the changes occurring in nature as the season changes from summer to autumn.
Use it or make one of your own.
On the 1st page, record the sunrise and sunset for as many days as you can in September. Where can you find this information?
You can get this data from the newspaper, the Internet or better yet, from your own personal observations.
On the 2nd page, you can record things like temperature, what kind of precipitation (if any) fell that day, and other observations about plants and animals.
On the 3rd page, at the end of the month, you can fill it the data from your charts to get a picture of what you observed happening in September.
We will do this for October and November, too, to get a complete picture of seasonal changes during the transition from summer to fall.
Read the blog post on phenology from April 25, 2018 to learn how to participate in citizen science phenology groups.
Have fun watching how the seasons change and be part of helping scientists study phenology. Enjoy!
Click on the link below to download your September Phenology Tracker.
Phenology tracker September 2018
Peace,
Nature Mamaw
Illustrations are my originals. Images are courtesy of Pixabay.com
Kathryn Randall 