Archivos de diario de abril 2017

11 de abril de 2017

Help your state capitol area win the City Nature Challenge!

The Triangle Area is competing against 15 other large urban areas nationwide this weekend in the City Nature Challenge - and we need your help!

The City Nature Challenge asks participants in any of the 16 competing cities to document species they find on iNaturalist over a 5 day period from April 14-18. In spite of the large area we've included as part of our Challenge site (a good part of central and east-central NC), our population is still much smaller than most of the other cities we're up against. We have our work cut out for us and the competition is likely to be fierce, so we need YOU to win!

The logistics: The CNC runs from 12:00 AM on Friday, 4/14 through 11:59 PM on Tuesday, 4/18. All observations collected during that time in the greater Triangle Area (and I mean greater - the area is big, so check out the map above!) count toward the Challenge. The national event organizers at the Natural History Museum of LA County and California Academy of Sciences are announcing results on 4/22, so try to get all your observations uploaded by noon that day. The more observations we can get identified down to species by then, the higher our species number will be and the better chance we'll have to win. You do NOT have to join the City Nature Challenge: Triangle Area project to submit sightings - we're auto-adding observations for this event.

Here's how you can help:

If you're in the greater Triangle Area, get outside, take photos of the plants, animals, and fungi you encounter, and submit them to iNaturalist! Only photos taken DURING the event will count, so plan to spend some time outdoors this weekend and upload your sightings as soon as you can.

If you're from outside the Triangle, you can still help by either visiting our part of the state to make observations or by looking over the observations submitted and contributing IDs. Only things IDed to species will ultimately count in our favor, so the more ID help we get, the better.

As an incentive for participating, we have prizes available for the top three contributors (# of observations) to our local Challenge! I (@chrisgoforth) will contact you through iNaturalist if you win to ask for a mailing address where I can send your loot.

There are several places you can join others to help us win the Challenge! We've got downtown urban nature walks, special lectures, and a cart program outside the Naturalist Center scheduled at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences (11 W Jones St, Raleigh) on Friday, 4/14. We're taking the Challenge to Prairie Ridge Ecostation (1671 Gold Star Drive, Raleigh) on Saturday, 4/15. Join us there for naturalist guided hikes on our 45 acre wildlife preserve, visit our education stations, or get help with iNaturalist. We have awesome vinyl water bottle/laptop style stickers available as a thank you for helping us document the species at Prairie Ridge while you participate in the Challenge! All of the NCMNS-based activities are listed on our event listing at http://naturalsciences.org/calendar/event/city-nature-challenge-triangle-area/.

NCSU is also participating! They've got campus walks scheduled for Thursday 4/13 and Monday 4/17, so please join them there if it's more convenient for you. Learn more at https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/wolfpack-citizen-science-challenge.

And finally, if you'd like to follow along with the national event, you can check out the other cities and review the leaderboard online at https://nhm.org/nature/citizen-science/city-nature-challenge-2017-leaderboard. Hopefully you'll see us take an early lead - and keep it for the win!

The NC Museum of Natural Sciences is excited to bring this event to the Triangle Area. Please let @chrisgoforth know if you have any questions. Otherwise we hope we'll join us to win the 2017 City Nature Challenge this weekend!

@allenratzlaff @loriannkayaker @scadwell @reallifeecology @jtuttle @johnnybirder @coatlicue @eraskin @annwf @kevinemetcalf @shstuddard @thewayfarer21 @jmarchal @wolfhoundgirl @rostamam @robvanepps @whiteoak @jstanley @milopyne @bonnieeamick @bluets15 @erikamitchell @jfox16 @earthstephen @musicwolf @kgardner @sarracenia @bradleysaul @caterpillarscount @ggnoma @mkosiewski @james5 @rcarroll @ditchontologist @heartsabustin @hydaticus @clintcalhoun @tybstar @edcoreyncdpr @charlie @discoverycamp @biology2016 @steve_kerr @jkspooner @sciencecandance @botanygirl @tamara_alexandra @sbetzen @adair @arleigh @dc_chadwick @marystarkp @kucycads @abeck365 @jspruill @wildmarin @cullen @calopteryx @arunima @awarren1unca @cdance @mijo @thomaspollard @layla @sarahdacres @jwochos @aredoubles @kmpetteruti @kylecmsmith @lampas @edwardbarrettt83 @cary2 @annagypsy @bjoelle @fungi-lover518 @tortuga_rapido @aprilbyrge @erasmus @glesener @gparkins @thecradleandme @jokurtz @torsten @jacobogre @ruggedbynature @fm5050 @ambermae @gyrrlfalcon @kate_wagner @finatic @kbeza31979 @vulpes-vulpes @merekitty @anudibranchmom @jwochos @ash2016 @kburke @whalend @jen4932 @georgepauly

Publicado el abril 11, 2017 11:11 TARDE por chrisgoforth chrisgoforth | 11 comentarios | Deja un comentario

17 de abril de 2017

Keep up the AMAZING work!

Wow, I am so impressed by all of your hard work for the City Nature Challenge so far! We are currently holding firm in 6th place, which is totally respectable. We're also the top eastern city in the Challenge. You guys ROCK!

The Challenge goes through 11:59 pm tomorrow, so you've still got over 24 hours to make observations. The Challenge organizers will choose the winners next weekend, so you have until April 22 to get your sightings uploaded. Don't have time today or tomorrow? No problem! You can still submit them, even after the event has ended. Just be sure to get them into the system by noon on April 22 so they'll count toward our event totals.

Speaking of uploading observations... I've not yet uploaded most of the many observations I've made! I, however, am not eligible to win the local Challenge because I am organizing it, so please ignore me if I end up in one of the top three spots.

Thank you all so much for your participation in this event! I think it brings some great attention to our state and you're collecting information that is valuable to a lot of people far beyond the event. Keep up the great work!

Publicado el abril 17, 2017 03:39 TARDE por chrisgoforth chrisgoforth | 1 comentario | Deja un comentario

18 de abril de 2017

Final day of the City Nature Challenge!

Hello Carolinians!

Just a quick reminder that today is the last day you can take photos for the City Nature Challenge. Anything you take before midnight tonight is eligible to be entered into the Challenge, so keep taking and submitting your photos! It's not over yet.

Remember: though you do have to take your observation photos during the Challenge dates (Friday through today), you don't have to have everything uploaded today for them to count toward our total. You have until Saturday at noon to get all of your Challenge submissions uploaded, so if you have a backlog of photos to add, you've still got some time to get them into the system.

I'll announce our local winners on Saturday afternoon by posting the winners here. I'll also contact the top three contributors through the iNat messaging system to get a mailing address for you so I can send you your loot!

Thank you all so much for your participation in this event! I have really enjoyed seeing the amazing nature in our area and working with you all to show off our citizen scientists and our nature to a national audience. I am thrilled with what we have been able to acconplish!

Now, why not flip your porch light on tonight and grab a few final photos? We've still got 4 more hours! :)

Publicado el abril 18, 2017 11:49 TARDE por chrisgoforth chrisgoforth | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

26 de abril de 2017

We're #6! We're #6!

By now you probably know that we didn't win the City Nature Challenge this year. Dallas took the 2017 title with a last minute 1000 observation submission and ended up with about 23,000 observations. However, we still did great! We came in 6th place out of the 16 cities, which is awesome. We also came in first of any of the cities participating east of the Mississippi River, so we're #1 in the east. Woo!

The winners of the City Nature Challenge: Triangle Area, those who made the most contributions, were @coatlicue, @caroline322, and @gmskupien, with 862, 481, and 340 observations respectively. Congratulations! You will receive your prize soon - please check your iNaturalist messages if you have not already.

This year's biggest species contributions were made by @scadwell, @jtuttle, and @whiteoak. While this year's Challenge focused on the total number of observations, your intimate knowledge of the species you contributed is amazing. I'll send each of you a prize as well - look for a message from me soon so I can get your mailing address.

Some other interesting stats:

We had 23.3 times the number of observations in 2017 relative to the same 5 days in 2016. That's awesome!

We also had 7.2 times the number of observers in 2017 relative to the same dates in 2016. We ended up adding 97 new people to iNaturalist overall.

We averaged 40 observations per person (we actually came in third in the country for this statistic!), so you all made a LOT of contributions. In short, you're amazing!

Our final totals, at the time of the official announcement, were 7441 observations, 1310 species reported, and 186 people participating, though all of these have gone up a bit since then too. Overall, the nationwide totals were 124,092 observations, 8557 species reported, and 4051 people participating. We were clearly part of something wonderful and helped make a real contribution to the overall effort. The City Nature Challenge ended up contributing more observation to iNaturalist than any other days in its history, so we helped break some records while doing some fantastic work as a local team!

I'll be posting on the NC Museum of Natural Sciences blog about the CNC and all your hard work soon, so please look for that if you're interested. The CNC will also be featured in the Museum's magazine, the Naturalist, so we'll get some additional local coverage through that.

Next year's City Nature Challenge is going international, so we'll be up against cities in other countries, not just our own. In the meantime, please consider joining and contributing to the NC Museum of Natural Sciences' Natural North Carolina project here on iNaturalist. We're trying to document all the plants, animals, and fungi in the entire state, so it's a big job. We could use your help, so I hope some of you will join us.

Thank you all so, so much for your participation in the 2017 City Nature Challenge! We may not have won, but we showed the rest of the country that we have amazing people, amazing naturalists, and dedicated citizen scientists. I am personally thrilled to have been a part of this and I am so proud of what we accomplished together. Thank you for participating and I hope you'll join us again next year. I truly believe that, together, we can win this!

Publicado el abril 26, 2017 01:29 MAÑANA por chrisgoforth chrisgoforth | 1 comentario | Deja un comentario

28 de abril de 2017

Quick survey about the City Nature Challenge

City Nature Challenge participants! Thanks so much for your energy and enthusiasm for the City Nature Challenge this year – it was incredible to see so many people excited to document their local nature.

Please help us make the City Nature Challenge even better next year!

If you took part in the City Nature Challenge – whether you made 1 observation or 1000 – we’re hoping you’ll fill out this short (only 5 questions!) survey to let us know about your experience. All input is important and appreciated!

Link to survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CNC2017

Thanks in advance!
Alison Young & Lila Higgins, City Nature Challenge coordinators
(California Academy of Sciences & Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County)

Publicado el abril 28, 2017 12:29 MAÑANA por kestrel kestrel | 1 comentario | Deja un comentario

Archivos