Community science based games/activities?

[sm18jk]

Hi All!
I am running some community science days at work, and am looking for any suggestions for games or activities to run using iNaturalist. I will definitely be using themed bingo cards and scavenger hunts. But was wondering if there are any other ideas out there!

Thanks.

[vreinkymov]

Maybe a scavenger hunt? By looking at the Explore option and selecting the species tab, it shows observations on order of most frequently observed, from which you can filter by type, for example:

• Plants
• Birds

Filter it for your location for more relevant results, etc. From each type, pick the top 10 and whoever observes the most species of those for that week gets the prize.

[pmeisenheimer]

I have a fond (sort of) memory of riding the 6 a.m. shuttle train to the tip of Point Pelee on a fine May morning, listening to a weird conversation in the row behind me among three guys in full Tilley hat regalia who were competitive birders. They talked birding all the way, sounding for all the world like a Saturday Night Live skit about jocks. They disembarked at the shuttle stop and immediately got into an argument about whether one of them had actually seen a bobolink in a flock of blackbirds that had flashed past. That was over 40 years ago and it was bizarre enough that it is still taking up space in what remains of my brain all these years on.

Anyway, don’t let it get out of hand.

P.S. Pretty sure there was no bobolink.

[anneclewis]

Seek has built in challenges and is an awesome “gateway” to iNat for families.

[pisum]

if you have an older audience (high school and up) you could do sort of an offline version of an online game idea i had here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/if-anyone-is-interested-in-making-a-game/34440.

basically pick a location, get some of the observations or commonly observed organisms from a location, and then ask folks to guess where the observations came from. whoever guesses closest to the location wins.

i think this kind of activity would get folks thinking about the connections between organisms and habitat, which i think its important, and it might be fun as sort of a wrap-up activity after a day of exploring a particular park or something like that.

[arnanthescout]

This thread might be of use:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/creative-ways-to-use-inaturalist/37428/5

In particular, this comment of mine came to mind:

@arnanthescout

I don’t know if this is particularly creative, but there is something I enjoy doing with iNat observations, although I suppose it works best for plants. I call it “naturalist’s geocaching”

Put simply, you search up interesting species near you, check the location, and then go out to that location and try to find it. Technically, one doesn’t even need an iNat account or have to make observations since you just use Explore mode. Nice thing about plants is they generally stay in one spot: even annuals will reseed at or near their location (otherwise how would they have grown there in the first place?).

Of course, one will need to take into consideration when a plant is in bloom or most likely to be seen, but besides that I find that even non-iNatters find it a lot of fun. I once tracked down a cool Krameria species that was observed the year before by another user. I later took several people out on a “plant geocaching expedition” to refind it. Although it was a bit past prime bloom season and the mowing didn’t help, we managed to find it again .

Also, it’ll often reveal a lot of cool things that are right in your area, so you don’t have to go out anywhere far or to some trail or something. The main limitation is just seasonality!