Though I’ve used iNaturalist sporadically for years, this was my first year being involved with the City Nature Challenge. My “City” skipped the CNC last year, and I ended up as one of the local organizers this year since it didn’t seem like any other organizations were going to step up for it. I ha…

It is good idea to find active users (most and foremost identifiers) and ask them to participate in curation. Or contact local ornithological/botanical societies - many are willing to help or even have already organised similar activities on different platforms. In my city most events by our local s…

I’ve been in touch via support with someone from a problematic CNC from this year and they referred to themselves and other participants as “contestants”. That could just be a translation thing, but if local organizers are framing the CNC as a “contest” and participants as “contestants”, that can de…

I’ve created a post outlining the issues with some potential solutions. It’s more of an overall big picture post, but you may find some of it useful: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/city-nature-challenge-issues-suggestions-for-improvement/65039/2

Thank you for compiling this. There’s going to be a CNC wrap-up meeting, I’ll share out your post as a resource as well there so other organizers can see it too.

I’m relieved to hear you haven’t seen issues with our project! Thank you especially for the feedback about the duress users. I know there were talks within our project specifically of coordinating with more local orgs next year, and possibly classrooms; but clearly that will require more thought on…

If student participation is desired, the older the students the better, and I would recommend making a field trip out of it and busing them to a location with wild plants, as it is otherwise difficult to get them to mark which plants are cultivated. (How do I know? I once gave a talk to a local high…

[image] arboretum_amy: the older the students the better The older ones are probably more adept at cheating, though, and more inclined to do so.

Fair point. I was saying that mainly because older students take better photos and are less likely to get up to pranks such as joke IDs or unflattering photographs of classmates.

I would be very careful/intentional about making iNat part of any school assignment. A large portion of the issues we see on iNat with problematic observations and IDs, including in some CNC projects, result from poorly executed school assignments (see many other forum threads).

How can local organizers make the CNC better?

General

DianaStuder May 12, 2025, 5:27pm 25

The teacher needs to be an active iNatter. Before so they can explain. During so they can monitor their students. After so they can keep resolving the problem obs.

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How can local organizers make the CNC better?

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