Calling All Citizen Scientists!
For the fifth year in a row, our friends at Fernbank are leading the charge in the Atlanta City Nature Challenge. Frazer Center is partnering in the effort, and YOU can help!
What began as a friendly competition between San Francisco and Los Angeles to celebrate the first ever Citizen Scientist Day has blossomed into a global event involving roughly 500 cities.
The mission of the contest is to connect city residents to their local nature, and to collect urban biodiversity data and make it available for science, management, and conservation purposes.
The object of the City Nature Challenge is to see which city can:
- Make the most observations;
- Find the most species;
- Engage the most people.
Atlanta’s numbers increase every year, and we hope YOU will help keep that trend going! For inspiration, check out Atlanta’s 2022 results HERE.
How can you participate?
It’s easy! During the dates of the City Nature Challenge, Friday, April 28 – Monday, May 1:
- Download iNaturalist: CLICK HERE or search for iNaturalist in your app store.
- Go Outside: Explore nature, either in your own backyard or local greenspace.
- Find Wildlife: Any plant, animal or fungi in Atlanta counts.
- Take a Picture with your Smartphone: Your picture will be automatically geo-tagged and date stamped by your phone.
- Share Your Observations: Upload your observations through the free iNaturalist app.
And that’s it! There’s no cost, there’s no registration. You don’t even have to know what it is you are observing. The iNaturalist app helps identify species, and experts using the app help confirm.
Observations can be made anywhere in the city, even in your own back yard or along a city sidewalk. We think Frazer Forest makes a great place to participate, and your observations will help us learn more about the biodiversity within our neighborhood old-growth forest.
The 2023 Atlanta City Nature Challenge makes for a great family or school project. We might even see a friendly competition between our two Pre-K classrooms!
Put on your citizen scientist cap, show your Atlanta pride, and get outside!
iNaturalist Tutorial Video:
How to Make an Observation on iNaturalist using our Mobile App from iNaturalist on Vimeo.
