We are big fans of citizen science! Of course, science is always cool, and STEM/STEAM projects are an increasing part of everyone’s work and school experiences. So understanding how science works is not just fun, but a good way to understand what is going on in the world around us all.
So we are sharing some neat science you can do, contributing toward large projects, and learning new things. Maybe you can use this today; maybe you will save it for later. As long as you enjoy some exploration and learning new things – citizen science is for you! And it is definitely something you can use to bring some good programming to your library.
Check out this week’s project from SciStarter:
| Presented By | California Academy of Sciences and National Geographic Society |
|---|---|
| Goal | Share observations of biodiversity. |
| Task | Take photos of biodiversity and upload to iNaturalist |
| Where | Global, anywhere on the planet |
| Description | iNaturalist is a place where you can record what you see in nature, meet other nature lovers, and learn about the natural world. It is also a crowdsourced species identification system and an organism occurrence recording tool. You can use it to record your own observations, get help with identifications, collaborate with others to collect this kind of information for a common purpose, or access the observational data collected by iNaturalist users. From hikers to hunters, birders to beach-combers, the world is filled with naturalists, and many of us record what we find. What if all those observations could be shared online? You might discover someone who finds beautiful wildflowers at your favorite birding spot, or learn about the birds you see on the way to work. If enough people recorded their observations, it would be like a living record of life on Earth that scientists and land managers could use to monitor changes in biodiversity, and that anyone could use to learn more about nature. That’s the vision behind iNaturalist.org. So if you like recording your findings from the outdoors, or if you just like learning about life, join us! See more |
| How to get started | Good news! This is a SciStarter Affiliate project. You can earn credit in your SciStarter Dashboard for your participation. Sign up or Log in to SciStarter. Your free account, while not required, enables your participation to be credited on your SciStarter Dashboard. Click the Visitbutton on this page. You will be directed to the project’s website or app and invited to create a project account there. Use the same email address (case sensitive!) you used to create your SciStarter account to join this project. Come back to SciStarter Dashboard > Info&Setting https://scistarter.org/dashboard/settings. Scroll down and enter your iNaturalist user name (case sensitive) in the section titled “Affiliation Integration.” You will start to see your participation recorded in your SciStarter Dashboard within 24 hours. Don’t worry–you won’t have to do this again. In the future, you can go directly to the iNaturalist app and your contributions will be synced to your SciStarter Dashboard. |
?:And if you want to bring in a few of these ideas to your library, it is useful to have a variety of different program strategies to help share this project. We have a few suggestions to help you get started:
- Go outside and take a hike! Find a fun place in your area to do some hiking.
- Write a report about your hike; if you can take some pictures that will help
- Collect different kinds of leaves. Try to identify each
- Take pictures of birds in your area; find some videos of them flying or bird songs
- Draw a picture of the environment you would most like to live. Identify the different types of plants or animals