Holy cow - we are doing a great job of collecting data observations so far! Give yourself a high-five!
This morning I wanted to share some tips for how to make our observations even better. iNaturalist provides some helpful information about "observations' and "organisms". Below are a few tips and links to a few others:
What Are Observations?
An observation records an encounter with an individual organism at a particular time and location. This includes encounters with signs of organisms like tracks, nests, or things that just died. When you make an observation, you'll record:
-Who you are - by having an iNat account
-What you saw
-Where you saw it
-When you saw it - the date of your encounter, not the date you post it to iNat
-Evidence of what you saw - photo or sound
More info can be found here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/getting+started
Making Useful Observations
Wild/Cultivated/Captive Organisms
iNaturalist is primarily about observing wild organisms and creatures. If you do upload captive or planted things like house plants, garden plants, zoo animals, or pets, please mark them as "captive/cultivated" on the add observation screen. That helps make sure the range maps only represent wild populations.
How to Become a Better Identifier
At its core, iNaturalist is about making observations and identifications. Everyone can get outside and point a camera can make observations. But identifying observations requires some expertise. Learning to identify organisms is a lifelong journey of slowly becoming better acquainted with more and more critters. So don't feel bad if you can't identify as many observations as well as you'd like, the important thing is to remember that everyone can and should get started learning how to identify organisms!
Learn more here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/lets_id_some_arthropods
Happy exploring! And let us know if you have any specific questions about making observations.
Cara
WXXI Education
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