Students start by developing skills for observing and identifying the organisms around them. These skills are fundamental for any scientist, including those studying issues impacting biodiversity. They can compare their own observations and prior knowledge from their own lives with local biodiversity data sources. While exploring data, students can develop their own biodiversity questions. 

Youth can discover more about ways in which biodiversity is being monitored lake-wide by exploring data from Tribes and community organizations actively engaged in biodiversity restoration and monitoring. Through learning how to collect data, students can turn their observations into data that helps document the region’s biodiversity. Spending time with this local data can help answer student questions connected to their observations, information about native, invasive, and culturally significant species, curiosity on how data are used, and so much more. Finally, students can reflect on how native species are important to them and how native species are important to Tribes. Students can see how their data can support care-taking efforts.