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…

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…

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.

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).

Perhaps it would help if iNaturalist changed the name of the CNC to something that sounds less competitive. Preferably something that begins with C so the acronym doesn’t have to change. I couldn’t think of a good C word, though. City Nature Exploration?

How can local organizers make the CNC better?

General

schoenitz May 17, 2025, 2:19pm 31

Collaboration

Topic		Replies	Views
City Nature Challenge - issues & suggestions for improvement General	65	2265	May 31, 2025
Thanks and appreciation for the tireless flaggers General	69	1734	May 8, 2025
Large numbers of falsified observations for this year's City Nature Challenge General	40	2437	May 8, 2025
City Nature Challenge 2025 ID residue General id , cnc25	52	1791	July 10, 2025
City Nature Challenge 2026 General	205	5673	June 25, 2026

How can local organizers make the CNC better?

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