SAEON Science Camp Grade 11's Journal

Hi all,

We have decided to only include observations that have a fairly accurate location (< 1km) in the SAEON Grade 11 Science Camp competition. We want to encourage you to upload good quality data, which is useful to the scientific community.

Please make sure that all your new observations (you can also go back and edit the location of old one - see the previous post) have a location accuracy of less than 1 km (1 000 when uploading, it's in meters). While these observations with vague locations (where the accuracy is more than 1km) will be seen in the iNaturalist project they will not be counted in the competition.

Keep it up! We are looking forward to seeing many more observations in the next two weeks.

Caitlin

PS: You can contact Nozi, Joe or Thomas if you have any questions.

Hi all,

I hope that you all have been enjoying uploading your observations.

I've noticed that a few of your observations do not have locations, or the locations are very vague (the circle on the map is really big). Having accurate location data will mean that the data you help collect is of better quality and will be more helpful to the scientific community.

Please can you check your observations for the following? We want you to upload quality data that can contribute to our understanding of biodiversity in South Africa.

1) All Observations have an accurate date. Tell us when did you take the photo
Some observations have no date and won't be added to the project or our competition.

2) All Observations have an accurate location.
Many of your observations have no location and won't be added to the project or our competition.

3) Many have vague locations (the big circle on the map). This means that your observation is somewhere in the circle and if it a few kilometers in diameter there is a huge area where your observation could be in.
This is an easy fix, You can edit the location - go to the observation click edit (or the pen if you are using the app) and go to the location.
I have just had someone ask me how to decrease the Acc. value - so I have a little explanation

I would suggest using your phone's location rather than just typing in the area. Here are the steps I would follow:
a) Make sure your phone location is on (you should find this in setting and just search for location).
b) In iNaturalist when uploading your observation click on location, this should bring up a map.
c) Click on the little bulls-eye to find where you are.
d) Wait for the Acc. value (small writing on the second line at the top, on the right) - the smaller the better (so right now my phone says 16, meaning the phone knows I'm within 16m of the point). If you are having issues with a high Acc. value Try a search for your address (or where you have found your observation) or try to find it on the map (you can zoom in and move around to find your location). Zooming in will also help decrease the Acc. value, just make sure that where you found your observation is in the circle on the map.
e) Click the tick at the top.

Let me know if you need any help and keep finding new things to upload!

Caitlin