iNaturalist Project Demo
Join the Blue Ridge Chapter for a zoom meeting demo how to participate in projects on iNaturalist! We will check out several projects:
The 2020 Virtual Fall Wildflower Pilgrimage from Oct. 10th-18th. This is a BioBlitz type event organized by the Wildflower Pilgrimage in the Smokies. You can participate from anywhere though – this is not limited to the Smokies or plants! Participation is free but requires that you send them your iNaturalist username. Check out their website for details and contact info. Once you are registered, your observations will get pulled automatically into the project during the event week. We will provide a demo how to browse the project and participate either by uploading your own observations or identifying and commenting on other people’s observations.
The Blue Ridge Chapter Plant Phenology Project. This is ongoing and your observations are pulled automatically if they meet the project criteria. Again, we will provide a demo how to browse the project or participate either with your own observations or by annotating plant phenology on existing observations on iNaturalist. We will also discuss the issue of preventing plant poaching and how to obscure the location of your observations on iNaturalist. This is done automatically for plants on the protected plant list in NC, but there are additional species of concern that we would want to protect as well.
The Daniel Boone Native Gardens Plants Inventory. This project is also ongoing but requires the manual addition of plants to the project. Again, we will provide a demo how to participate in this and discuss the difference between “wild” and “captive/cultivated” entries such as garden plants on iNaturalist and how they may be used for research.
If you wish to participate, you may find it useful to create an iNaturalist account if you don’t have one yet, and have a computer available during the zoom meeting to follow along with the demos on the iNaturalist website. Details how to join the zoom meeting will be sent out through the Blue Ridge Chapter email list.