City Nature Challenge 2019: Chicago Wilderness Region's Journal

Journal archives for February 2019

February 20, 2019

The Web Page: where to go for more information

Friends of the Forest Preserves is one of three City Nature Challenge 2019: Chicago Wilderness Region partners. Visit their nature-lovin' website to get "how-to" information as well as view a list of City Nature Challenge events in our region (coming soon).

http://www.fotfp.org/city-nature-challenge/

Posted on February 20, 2019 02:53 AM by kennedy9094 kennedy9094 | 0 comments | Leave a comment

February 25, 2019

Can teachers use City Nature Challenge and iNaturalist in the classroom?

The answer is YES, PLEASE! Many educators around the world already use iNaturalist in their citizen-science curriculum. There are a few things to keep in mind:

  1. Users must be at least 13 years old to create a personal iNaturalist profile, but there are options for younger learners to participate.
  2. Teachers should be proficient with iNaturalist before it is introduced to the class. A user is considered proficient after making 20-30 wild observations on iNaturalist as well as reviewing community feedback on those observations.
  3. Be cautious about using citizen science projects where quantity is the focus. This can do a disservice to the student as well as to the quality of data produced by the iNaturalist community. iNaturalist has created a Teacher's Guide, as well as example's of successful classroom projects which can be viewed here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/teacher%27s%2Bguide

A group of public institutions is developing resources for K-12, higher education and the general public. This Teacher Toolkit can be found at http://citynaturechallenge.org/education-toolkit.

If you are looking for additional materials or to connect with other teachers in the Chicago Wilderness Region, please send an email with your name, school, grade, county, and state to CWRCNC@gmail.com.

Posted on February 25, 2019 01:23 AM by kennedy9094 kennedy9094 | 0 comments | Leave a comment