Learning Frameworks Overview
Constructing knowledge about seasons and the earth’s rhythms and patterns is something that culture communities across the earth have done since time immemorial. Engaging these cycles and rhythms has been central to how societies have developed specific nature-culture relations and the routine practices of human activity. Over time, scientists have come to call the study of seasonal impacts on plant and animal life cycles, including humans, Phenology!
Phenology Wheel: Following 10 Cyclical Rhythms
The Phenology Wheel tool supports thinking across 10 cyclical rhythms of the natural and social world. These provide a framework for supporting learner sense-making throughout seasons and life cycles. A key reason to engage learners in this thinking is that it will support them in understanding how species and kinds respond to changes in climate at different spatial and temporal scales. Learners should also reason across the seasons to understand how the impacts of unprecedented and unpredictable changes in one rhythm cause disruptions in another. Phenological asynchrony — mismatched seasonal timing — occurs when interacting species change the timing of their natural cycles at different rates due to changes in climate.
