The lesson set in this article describes an introductory learning experience using wildlife camera-based citizen science projects hosted on Zooniverse (http://www.zooniverse.org). Wildlife camera projects were chosen due to the charisma of the study organisms, student engagement while looking at images, ease of access to projects, ease of teaching data collection protocols, and the overarching concepts of stability and change. Activities were structured to engage students in the scientific practices of analyzing and interpreting data and constructing an explanation through the creation of a scientific poster. The goal of the lesson was to engage students in academic language acquisition using discourse (development of narrative on scientific poster) and syntax (data representation on scientific poster). Following the lesson, the authors reflect that one of the things they noticed, as educators, is that this material was accessible for all students, and all students were engaged in the data collection and analysis process. The partner work and photographs gave students common ground to discuss other facts they knew about the animals or about local animals that were similar to those in the photograph. Compared to previous writing attempts, students were also more successful in using both discourse and syntax in a robust manner. All groups completed the poster (discourse) and had accurate data tables and graphs (syntax). Even with the limited discussions some students provided, students have reported that they have engaged their friends and/or families in projects on Zooniverse.