Citizen science is a research collaboration between scientists and volunteers who provide data for education, conservation, and environmental protection. Volunteers, often the locals in the area, provide data on species occurrence while researchers perform distribution mapping or other data analysis. Social networking sites including Facebook,…

This paper describes what happened in four teachers' classrooms as a result of participating in Operation Magpie, a Citizen Science project. The range of strategies used to engage their students in observing magpies in the schoolyard and in nearby parks is the focus of the teachers' stories. "Magic spots", data collection, class blogs,…