Students determine Deciduous Forest plants with Snapleaf App

My students are learning about organisms in ecosystems and we have started with Deciduous Forests since it is the biome we live in. We are going to continue to discover the organisms and the environments of the other biomes, but we started in our home biome. To learn about the plants in the Deciduous Forest biome we used an app called Leafsnap. This is an app that has a variety of leaf and tree images and has a great feature that allows you to "snap it" which takes a picture of the leaf and then students need to look at the 10 closest and determine the leaf and its match. For this science investigation I had students use "science process skills" of observation, sketching the leaf, determine the properties of the leaf including the shape and the edge as those are usually defining features when matching the leaf with the choice on leaf snap. The students were excited to notice the differences between the leaves, similarities and then to see MORE about the specimen, the leaf, branches, fruit or nut, bark, etc. Although we did this in the classroom with samples, in an authentic experience they could see if the organism had all the matching features! Although late in the season, the kids really learned a lot and also used science skills with technology.