I tell my students that I am currently pursuing a DIY degree in Biology. How? With online reference books and syllabi and self-designed “lab work” (walking around staring at nature to understand it) and a LOT of time spent staring at images on iNat because I know I learn from them.
yeah my advice to you is don’t let their weird and frustrating learning retirements ruin your joy of learning. iNat is a great place for self guided learning and study, and for collaboration by excited participants. It really doesn’t work well for people are compelled or assigned to use it. Data quality takes a huge hit and it isn’t via malice or laziness or anything it’s just how humans work. This isn’t the sort of thing that results in good outcome if you don’t want to be doing it.
I’d argue it’s true for all learning, really, but that’s a whole other rant.
If I were an admissions officer at a college or university, and I was familiar with iNat, I’d be looking at (in no particular order):
• number of observations
• number of IDs made for others
and/or
• whether or not the applicant curates, manages or admins any projects.
Hope that helps. But, yes, I agree with a previous user’s comment that iNat under duress is not good. So just make sure that the goals you set are going to be achievable and fun. Focus on what really interests you.
I will definitely have to remember that! It does not seem like screenshots will work so it will not count for school for me, but if I can add it to my college resume then it works perfectly!
I had no idea there was such a thing as a “Master Naturalist”. Apparently, my state had one until 2018, then lost it, brought it back in Spring 2021 as a 13-part online lecture for free, but now all those web pages are dead and the person in charge’s website (link to bio page type thing) is also down.
…I’m guessing the dude must’ve died and the program is dead again because even the “year review” page for all the various extension programs, the Master Naturalist program is listed as “incomplete/data lacking”. But I emailed one of the program overseers of all the extension programs to ask just in case. Government sites are often updated poorly afterall!
there are some great master naturalist programs out there. Vermont has some amazing ones, though i am biased as i actually teach a wetland lesson for one of them :)
There isn’t any certificate, but there are metrics she can review. If you go make observations or contribute IDs, that is all logged. Maybe you could set a goal for X of each and you can get “credit” for the time.
Sounds like you don’t want to do it, but just another idea. For us, “instruction hours” can be pretty loose
Here’s an idea. What if I, a middle-aged scientist complete with graying beard, Ph.D., and publications in evolutionary biology and zoology, offer a free certification of some sort? “I, Dr. Daniel Levitis, certify that Northern Borealis has demonstrated knowledge and skill in zoology, botany, and natural history by contributing XYZ number of observations of ABC wild species in the State of Alaska to the global iNaturalist biodiversity database. Northern Borealis has shown exemplary dedication and skill, and yada yada yada…” People tend to put way too much faith in these things when they come from a white guy with a degree and title. Gotta use that privilege for something useful.
I am on the Executive Committee of our state’s Master/Volunteer Naturalist program. The programs I am aware of do have a minimum age requirement; some it’s 18, some it’s 16. The reason for this is that the program is as much about volunteer development for naturalist programs as it is about developing the naturalist skills and there are all sorts of liability issues around that.
Since I better understand what is meant by formalizing, I return to my idea of starting and leading a project, maybe for home schoolers, maybe for youth in general (with all the attendant security reminders), maybe for your community. This is akin to being part of an extracurricular club at a regular school. Many colleges look for leadership ability through extracurricular activities.
Yes, I agree: If iNat is to be used for educational purposes, the first thing to do would be to identify a learning goal. “Using iNat” is not really a learning goal but rather a means to achieve some goal. If you are already using iNat for fun and don’t want that to be spoiled by turning it into some sort of graded activity, I would suggest to make the learning goal something different so you can keep that separate. Examples might be: to develop written communication skills; to use field guides to identify unknowns; to collect and curate data; to test a hypothesis; to demonstrate leadership etc.
The next step would be to come up with specific learning outcomes and how these will be assessed, aka what are the activities going to be and what evaluation criteria will be used to determine that the goal was accomplished? There should be a defined product/time frame to accomplish this so you can feel like you’re “done with the lesson” at some point. This could be e.g. finding and identifying representatives of 10 plant families among the unknowns, creating a checklist of birds visiting your yard, writing a weekly journal report for three months, annotating phenology and generating a graph to display that data, setting up a project to organize a bioblitz for your area etc.
If you are thinking about college applications, creating something tangible beyond simple observations and IDs such as journal posts, check lists, data figures, projects etc. could add to a portfolio demonstrating your scientific literacy and engagement. The big advantage of using a community platform like iNat for this is that you can get feedback to help you refine your skills and interests.
YES! Especially a consideration for homeschoolers … can show successful involvement in a group. I’d argue having iNat followers could potentially show this as well, to some extent (in addition to curating, managing or administering a project — which, as mentioned by a previous user, shows leadership, too).
There are so many good ideas here. I especially like how @annkatrinrose has framed things. I just want to add that, this may seem like something that is just concocted for students - hoops to jump through, so to speak. But the stuff outlined here are things that A) I’ve had to do in my professional life, that is, come up with goals, ways to measure them, explanation of benefits of achieving goals, etc. and… B) things that I do on a very casual basis just for fun. I have a number of soft personal iNat goals running all the time.
I personally think that people who can frame their own learning model (modal? - not sure of the best word here) rather than just complete assignments are the cleverer people. Learning how to learn, coming up with the questions one seeks an answer for is better than just providing answers to questions someone else framed. So, if you chose to do something like this with iNat, don’t think of it as something some authoritarian adult created as busy work. Take ownership of your own curiosity, interests and learning style and consider it just as valid as something another person or entity might frame for you.
I am constantly impressed with the young people I come across in iNaturalist in how passionate, motivated, and eager to accumulate data and knowledge they are. I’m glad your excited about nature and iNat no matter how you chose to move forward on this particular issue.
I am homeschooled too, and my Mom is having me do a paper/thesis on the behavior and identification of genus Naphrys. I wonder what a great place to learn identification skills is… oh wait!
Well apparently the Alabama person is still alive; my email was forwarded to them.
I am apparently on an email list now for when it gets fully started back up. I have not heard back to confirm that though (they asked if they could put my email on said list, and I replied with yes). I also asked for hearing accommodations though…so I fear that may get me booted. I am HoH and would need for example any online course parts to be closed captioned. Hopefully they are just slow at answering emails; or trying to figure out how to accommodate me before replying. With Zoom I know just the host has to go into their account and toggle a few things to turn on live CC to the meeting. It’s a simple google for the directions for how. If it’s predone videos, many programs allow you to imput closed captioning (I really recommend this over auto-CC unless it’s live and you can’t get someone to type live; because auto-CC is NOT good with specific topics and it will be gibberish)
This is the saddest thing I’ve heard! Yet it’s an important issue to resolve: How to not ruin learning by making a “lesson” out of something? Just pinpointing how iNaturalist can be a tool for homeschool students, I’d think just trying it to log or record observations about the habitats a student lives in would be “fun”. Being able to share stuff with others and see what others have observed would also be fun. If the tool works, it would grow into an organic part of how students discover nature and become curious about nature in other areas. But the idea that “assignments” or lesson plans kills the joy of learning seems strange to me. My wife and I homeschooled two children and one of them homeschools her three children–and all of them loved “good” lessons. Planned lessons and study always was faster and less frustrating than random activities. iNaturalist seems ideal for being part of a good lesson plan scenario.
