Sam Hughes School Outreach

In September 2019, members of our lab teamed up with the outdoor educator at Sam Hughes Elementary School to organize a lizard research project for 30 fourth grade students. Alexus Cazares and Luiza Samora prepared a presentation for the students explaining to them who we are, the work that our lab does, and the methods that we use to study lizards. After the presentation, we opened the floor for students to ask questions and discuss possible project ideas. As a class, the students decided to study the relative abundance and distribution of the three different lizard species on their campus. Our lab assisted the fourth graders with this project by planning field days and teaching the students how to noose lizards, identify the three lizard species, determine sex and age class, obtain body measurements (snout to vent length, tail length, and mass), use a GPS to record location information, and insert a PIT-tag for individual identification. After our field days, the fourth graders continued to conduct mark-resight surveys of the lizards and decided to turn this research project into a science fair poster. Our lab was very excited to learn that their poster advanced to SARSEF (Southern Arizona Research, Science, and Engineering Foundation) Fair, the regional science fair on March 11-14, 2020. This outreach event was a great experience not only for the fourth grade class, but also for students in the Goode Lab. Our lab enjoyed teaching the students about science and seeing them get excited about lizards!