iNaturalist Project
iNaturalist is a participatory science portal in which members of the
public upload photos or audio recordings of wildlife. Observations are
tagged with location and time/date stamps and publicly searchable on the
organization’s website (inaturalist.org). Identification of organisms is
assisted with an artificial intelligence interface which suggests
possible taxonomic groups, as well as a robust community of users who
suggest identifications and/or confirm other user’s suggestions. Photos
or audio recordings can be taken and uploaded in the moment on a mobile
device, or with a traditional camera and uploaded later from a laptop or
desktop.
All CalNat courses incorporate iNaturalist observations into at least
one activity (in addition to a class participatory science project,
discussed in the Participatory Science Projects section). Wild Davis
students participate in the iNaturalist-focused City Nature Challenge
(CNC, citynaturechallenge.org) which promotes iNaturalist observations
of urban wildlife in cities around the world during a four-day weekend,
in this case April 24th-27th, 2020. The 2020 CNC was heavily impacted by
shelter-in-place guidelines and limited access to regional greenspaces.
Numerous participating cities opted to cancel their CNC entirely. Other
cities cancelled all formal gatherings and events, and transitioned to a
“City Nature Celebration,” reducing the competitive focus of the CNC
and emphasizing observing backyard wildlife.
Figure 2 compares CNC participation between 2019 and 2020 in
both numbers of observations (Fig 2A ) and number of
participants (Fig 2B ). All 2019 Wild Davis students made
observations in the Sacramento Region (which includes the UCD campus and
town of Davis). The majority of 2020 Wild Davis students (21/23) resided
in a CNC-participating region, and students outside these regions could
still post observations to iNaturalist during the CNC window, though
their observations were not included in CNC totals. In both quarters,
students received course points for participation in the CNC (or
participation on iNaturalist during the CNC for students outside CNC
regions), with full points received for at least 20 observations. In
2019, students were required to make observations of wild organisms (not
captive or cultivated); however, to accommodate shelter-in-place
directives in 2020, cultivated plants (including landscaping and
gardens) were allowed, so long as the observation was marked
“Captive/Cultivated” on iNaturalist.
Likely due to limitations to outdoor recreation under shelter-in-place
guidelines, overall Wild Davis participation in the CNC was reduced in
2020 compared to 2019 (Fig 2A ). Prior to the spring 2020
quarter, only one 2020 Wild Davis student had an iNaturalist account and
no 2020 students participated in the 2019 CNC (Fig 2B ).
Interestingly, the majority of 2020 CNC observations by Wild Davis
students were made by students from the 2019 cohort (862/1389, 62%,Fig 2A ), though this large contribution was generated by a
small number (n=2) of individual students (Fig 2B ).