Over the years I’ve featured Project Noah and the USA Phenology Network’s maps as platforms through which students can track the changes of seasons in North America. Recently, through the Maps Mania blog I learned about another good site that students can use to track the changes in seasons. That site is called Journey North.

Journey North is a crowd-sourced created by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum. On Journey North you will find interactive maps that represent the first appearances of migratory birds across North America in the spring and in the fall. You’ll also find maps of other signs of the changes of seasons. Those include maps of changes in daylight, the first appearances of changes of leaves on trees, and the first appearances of hibernating animals.

Applications for Education
Journey North provides interactive maps of the current year as well as maps going back to 1997. Those could be used by students to explore changes in migratory patterns over time. Students could also use the 22 years of maps to explore changes in the timing of other signs of spring and fall in North America.

Journey North has a page of teaching resources. Within that page you’ll find this 28 page PDF (link opens the PDF) that contains many suggestions for helping students develop skills to ask good inquiry questions, record observations, and make conclusions based on facts.