Ready for the 2019 City Nature Challenge? We Certainly Are!
Between April 26th and 29th, about 170 cities in 29 countries will be competing worldwide to see who can make the most observations of nature, find the most species, and engage the most people in the worldwide 2019 City Nature Challenge (CNC). Such events are known as Bioblitz events.EwA is participating in this year’s challenge again! Every single day of the 4-days long challenge, we’ll run bioblitz events in reservations, parks and streets of the Boston area. Our locations include:
- the Fresh Pond Reservoir in collaboration with the Cambridge Water Department
- the Middlesex Fells Reservation in collaboration with the Friends of the Fells
- the Armory and The Draw Seven Park of Somerville with the City of Somerville
Join any of these events to observe & record what we see together! It’s a lot of fun, and a great way to help science while getting to learn about our communities and their biodiversity!
Fresh Pond Reservoir 🦋 Join us at the Fresh Pond Reservoir. We’ll focus our observations on a meadown in the reservoir, recording wildlfowers, trees and all the like, and establishing a baseline for a Pollinator survey that we’re starting this year. We could even see eagles 🦅 if we’re lucky: We spotted 2 in flights this past October! Middlesex Fells Reservation 🐸 Join us in the Middlesex Fells Reservation. We’ll focus our observations on a wetland area, recording the fauna and fauna around a pond that we’ll survey as part of a Vernal Pool Awareness & Protection program starting this year in the Fells. Who knows, we might be lucky and spot some salamanders. It’s the right time of the year for that! Urban Somerville 🍃 Join us at the Armory and the Draw Seven Park of Somerville. We’ll focus our observations on the trees, wildflowers & birds of this busy urban community. You’ d be surprise to see how rich still a city environment can be. Right where we live, there are nuthatches, flickers, black squirrels and a myriad of wildlfowers. Come discover them with us! |
We are needed all over the World to take observations (with our phones and cameras) of as many species as possible. The more the better! This information will help to get a more accurate picture of the biodiversity in the Boston area, focusing within the I-495 corridor and out to Stellwagen Bank.
Any observation of plants, animals, fungi, even microbes, made in the greater Boston area during these days, will count for the challenge.
This is a national event encouraged by iNaturalist, open to anyone in the World and here in the Boston area.
Taking part is easy and free! To participate with us:
1) Download the iNaturalist app from the AppStore or Google Play (or use iNat online) & join the iNaturalist EwA City Nature Challenge Event.
2) Once you registered on iNaturalist, please send us your profile name at citizenscience@earthwiseaware.org, so that we get your observations counted explicitly in our EwA challenge project! We’ll generate a report after the challenge to show our particiapants contributions.
3) Get familiar with the app. Check the iNat short Getting Started guide and video tutorials. You can also join any of our citizen science crash courses prior to the challenge and listed in our calendar [» EwA’s Events Calendar]
4) Get outside & find wildlife.
5) Take a picture and then share your observations. Make sure to follow good observation and recording guidelines.
You can also join the many organized events in your area (find if your city participates in the event). We will specifically host events once a day between April 26th and April 29th . Each of our events will be about 2 hours long, and you’ll learn and share a ton with us!
Come & Join us! It’s a lot of fun, and for the great purpose of helping science to better protect the Nature that we love!
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What you’ll learn with us by joining any of our events  Calico Pennant (Celithemis elisa) | EwA iNat Research Grade Sighting Besides having fun, you’ll also learn about: ꙳ Biodiversity ꙳ The importance of everyone’s participation through Citizen Science ꙳ How to ethically observe and record nature & wildlife sightings ꙳ How to use recording apps such as iNaturalist like pros Events List Introducton to Citizen Science Seminar (March & April) Climate science & Biodiversity science need you and the information that you can collect. And the good news is that you can really make a difference! This is a crash course about participative science (a.k.a. citizen science), that is the active public involvement in scientific research. In this class, we introduce you to what citizen science is, why it is needed, where it is needed, how you can help (individually or joining some of our local projects in local parks and reservations), and some of the popular tools used in citizen science projects. Join us. It’s fun & exciting. Let’s make a difference together! No PhD Needed: Saving the Planet with Citizen Science Seminar Schedule:
Species Recording Events (April 26-29) Together let’s observe & record what we see!
We invite you to join our community and any of our iNaturalist projects. And you are most welcome to attend any of our local citizen science events! |
Sharing is Caring Spread the word!
Banner Pic: EwA iNat recording of a Black-capped Chickadee (Middlesex Fells Reservation, Medford MA) | Dragonfly (Calico Pennant) Photo credit: © Laura Costello.
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✓ CNC 2019 Bioblitz Final Numbers! And We Did Great!
There we go! The 2019 City Nature Challenge’s results are finally out!
In the Boston area itself, for which we serve in the organizing committee, we had 1,107 observers who gathered a total of 20,329 observations!
How about EwA’s effort? We rock! Together with you we gathered about 1200+ wild observations over 373 different species (in less than 12-15 hours of events total)! We surveyed more than 8 locations. We covered 11 taxa over a category of 12! The only taxon that we did not cover is the chromista… Oh well – next time 😉
EwA Results:
∗ Total [1212 records / 313 species ] » https://tinyurl.com/ewa-cnc2019-results
∗ The Fells [527 records / 214 species] » https://tinyurl.com/ewa-cnc2019-fells-results
∗ Lusitania [231 records / 102 species] » https://tinyurl.com/ewa-cnc2019-fpr-results
∗ Draw Seven Park [186 records / 68 species] » https://tinyurl.com/ewa-cnc2019-draw7-results
This year, we engaged a total of 79 participants+: 40 participants across 9 sites, and 39 2nd-degree participants (through the participation of the students of 2 of our high school teacher colleagues).
Our project supplied about 5% of all the Boston area observations! Our top collector, who tried to record the distinct species that we observed during our events, is the 5th who had the most diverse records (over 1087 observers)!
And, worldwide, our top collector (and representative of EwA), with your help made us be part of the 1% top observers (species-wise)!
For us (young EwA), that’s quite an achievement! Last year, there was about only 5 of us doing the challenge and we collected 180 observations of 80 different species -which was already quite something 🙂
You want to know all the exciting details? We’ll publish a full detailed report later this year (sign up to our newsletter > https://www.earthwiseaware.org/newsletter/).
And thanks again to all of you, who observed, identified or supported this important effort to document wild organisms worldwide. You rock!
ⓘ More… CNC 2019 in Numbers:
∗ EwA City Nature Challenge 2019 » https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/ewa-city-nature-challenge-2019
∗ City Nature Challenge: Boston Area » https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2019-boston-area
∗ City Nature Challenge: Worldwide » https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2019
#biodiversity #bioblitz #natureDocumentation #citizenScience #openScience