Building Treehouses: ToL Treehouse Builders

Build Treehouses

Builders log-in

• Register as a treehouse builder
• Try out our treehouse building tools

Builders Toolkit

• Builders Toolkit
• How to Begin Building
• Building for Teachers
• Planning Guide
• Treehouse Tools
• Adding Images/Media

treehouses

Who can build treehouses?

• Teachers and Students
  • Teachers can register their classrooms so that students of all ages can become treehouse builders. Students and teachers will use Web-based publishing tools for building and managing treehouses. Teachers first need to become treehouse builders before they can register their classrooms.
• Learners and Science Enthusiasts
  • Learners and science enthusiasts who are over 18 can register now to use our Web-based publishing tools for building treehouses. Those under 18 will need to become treehouse builders as part of a classroom project.
• Scientists and Science Education Organizations
  • Scientists can author many different types of ToL pages, including treehouse learning materials. We welcome scientists and science education organizations to register as treehouse builders and/or to contact us if they are interested in contributing learning materials to the Tree of Life.

Why Build Treehouses?

New Fall 06: Treehouse Builders can contribute to ToL Podcasts! Join ToL contributors from around the globe to create an open access digital library about biodiversity and the evolutionary history of organisms. Read more..

Treehouses

Treehouses are ToL web pages designed for learners and other people interested in learning about the Tree of Life.

• Treehouses
• Investigations
• Stories
• Fun and Games
• Art and Culture
• Teacher Resources
• WebQuests
• Biographies
• Portfolios

• What can I build?
• Why build treehouses?
• How will the Tree of Life use my work?
• What information will I need to supply?
• System Requirements

What Can I Build?

What you put into a treehouse can range from write-ups of experiments to poems and songs in honor of your favorite organism. Treehouse builders can also contribute images, audio and video of the organisms that they are studying. From butterflies and frogs, to dinosaurs and fungi, treehouses are for celebrating and exploring the diversity of Life on Earth.

Please view:

• The treehouse home page to explore the treehouses we have now.
• Fun Ways to Get Started Building Treehouses for ideas of what you can contribute and Treehouse Building Steps for a general idea of the building process.
• The Builders Toolkit and the Builders Guide to find out more about how to construct treehouses and see examples of our Web-based data entry tools.

As a treehouse builder you will:

• Join
  • a growing community of bioscience learners who are working to make the ToL an open access digital library about biodiversity and the evolutionary history of organisms. See: Learning with the Tree of Life
• Create
  • your own treehouse web pages using ToL web-based data entry tools and digital media: images, audio, movies, and text. See: Documenting Your Work, The Builders Planning Guide and the Building Steps
• Publish
  • treehouse games, stories, investigations, art and cultural pieces, biographies, and teacher resources on the Tree of Life. See: Treehouses, Building Activities
• Learn
  • about phylogenetic biology, new places, organisms and projects. See: What is Phylogeny?, Learn About...
• Access
  • fun, interdisciplinary treehouse building activities to learn about biodiversity online, in class and outdoors. See: Building Activities, Treehouses
• Collaborate
  • with other with kids, teachers, science enthusiasts and scientists from around the world and connect your work to the larger bioscience community. Coming soon: ToL Discussion Forums

Teachers

• Build treehouses with your classroom.
  • To register classroom projects so that your students can build treehouses, you must first register as a treehouse builder, then you can login and choose to register a classroom project. See:
    • Start Class Treehouse Building Projects: How to Register and Manage Student Treehouse Projects
    • Building for Teachers
• Create excitement
  • about bioscience learning by providing your students with fun and creative ways to learn about Life on Earth.
• Support
  • the scientific inquiry process in your classroom and help create young scientists. ToL learning resources assist students with building their prior knowledge, reflecting on their practice, publishing their results, entering into the dialogue of scientists, and generally building their self-concept as science practitioners.
• Forge connections
  • between science, literacy and technology learning. Creating web pages provides a motivating medium to promote student writing and scientific enterprise. The process of building a web page will cultivate students' basic computer skills, as well as more advanced areas such as the creation of multimedia files.
    • See: Building for Teachers, Teacher Resources, ToL Learning for Teachers

Scientists and Science Education Enthusiasts

• Support
  • learning about biodiversity by sharing your expertise and enthusiasm with kids, teachers and lifelong science learners.
• Reach
  • a broad audience with your materials and information.
    • See: Marine Discovery: Exploring Marine Life, Life as a Lizard

How will the Tree of Life use my work?

Contributors keep the copyright for any treehouses, images and other media submitted to the Tree of Life database, and a copyright notice is printed alongside all materials displayed on the ToL web site. Upon submitting a file, contributors grant the ToL Project non-exclusive rights of use. For detailed information about the available options, please see Tree of Life Use of Contributions.

What information will I need to supply when I build a treehouse or submit media?

When you upload a treehouse or media file to the ToL database, you need to provide the following required information:

1. The name of the copyright owner
2. The use permitted by the copyright owner (see above)

Additional Information you will need to supply for Treehouses

In addition to the name of the copyright owner and the use permitted by the copyright owner, when you compose a treehouse you are also required to provide:

• The names of the authors (all authors must be registered contributors). Registered contributors will have the choice of whether to list themselves as authors, copyright holders, and correspondents. Treehouse builders can also choose whether to publish their email address on the ToL. Builders who are under 13 years of age will not be able to publish their email address.
• The names of any parties who helped contribute to the building of the treehouse who should be acknowledged.
• The ToL learner level (beginner, intermediate or advanced).
• What group of organisms on the Tree of Life we should attach your work to.

There are several other fields to fill out that will make up the content of your treehouse page. To see example data entry forms with all of the information you will need to fill out please see the Treehouse Builders Guide.

Additional Information you will need to supply for Media

Please see Contributing Images and Other Media to the Tree of Life

System Requirements

Below are some system requirements and suggestions for users who would like to contribute ToL treehouses.

1. Your computer needs to have cookies and java script turned on in order for you to login and contribute treehouses and media.
2. Your web browser needs to support the Treehouse Editor and the ToL Easy Editor. The ToL Easy Editor is used to add text and media to your treehouse page. See the box below for the browsers that support the Easy Editor.