App: Project Noah

I looked at the app Project Noah (https://www.projectnoah.org/mobile).

Project Noah is an app to explore and document wildlife. It also harnesses “the power of citizen scientists everywhere”. Users can spot and document wildlife, using several pre-defined categories. Users submit a picture and a description of the spotting; latitude/longitude and time of spotting are automatically added. Project Noah has a counter on its website indicating 810.570 spottings (13.3., 8 p.m.).

Users can leave comments to other spottings, find related or nearby spottings, and help to identify unidentified spottings. They can also join missions that can be predefined by anyone.

Regarding using Project Noah in education, the website writes: ” By encouraging your students to share their observations and contribute to Project Noah missions, you not only help students to reconnect with nature, you provide them with real opportunities to make a difference.” The website offers missions and challenges to be used in the classroom and supporting materials for the teacher.

Overall, I really appreciate this simple, yet effective app. Students are encouraged to go into the nature, observe, identify, document, share, and catalogue spottings in a group of peers. This is cooperative learning embedded in a real physical environment. The missions add gamification that will increase motivation. I see this related to LfU – it is about applying scientific research principles (observing, analysing, documenting) and about knowledge construction while doing research. And, most importantly: It is very easy to use, only a mobile phone is needed, no complex technology. So the barriers to try it out seem rather low to me.