Good to be among fellow huge nerds haha.
My name is Professor Sean Patton, an Ecology Adjunct at Ringling College in Sarasota FL. My company Stocking Savvy does wetlands restoration and management from Pensacola to Miami and sometimes outside of that. I also ran the Sarasota Manatee EcoFlora Project one of the major EcoFlora projects working to streamline the teaching of iNaturalist. Also wrote a book on aquatic butterfly gardens and have made floating wetlands for several uses.
I have several cool community and college level classroom approaches to iNaturalist if anyone wants support. Follow the newsletter on my Stocking Savvy website if you are interested in events such as the Florida native plant society hike in November. My time is limited so I suggest emailing me at stockingsavvy@gmail.com or visiting Sarasota where I am based from. Florida has a current bad reputation forā¦ a lot. However it is rapidly improving despite what the news says and Sarasota is undergoing a renaissance of environmental work.
If you have support for Florida wetlands work I am always open to it be it resources, funding, land, etc. If I can help with the above let me know. Otherwise I promise I got weirder stuff than you on my iNaturalist Sean_Patton including at least 3 species new to science.
Thatās it looking forward to meeting some of you!
I just got my official welcome to the Ambassador program!
I am a biologist based in Monterrey, Mexico (se habla espaƱol, if needed). I have been around on iNaturalist since 2013, and I am an avid fan to say the least. I have been working with others in Mexico to help new users engage since 2015 as part of Mexicoās Tutoring program (now in standby), and I am now thrilled to be part of this new initiative.
If anyone is traveling near my city, do not hesitate to send a message.
Saludos!
Iām Breanna! Iām in Mississippi and my specialty is spiders! That might be putting it lightly, lol. Spiders are one of the most important parts of my life! Iāve been very involved with entomology outreach through Mississippi State University and also have participated in the Entomological Society of Americaās Education and Outreach Committee! Iām always up to talk spiders with anyone and to participate in any sort of event!
From the webinar, today, there was discussion about starting with one taxonomic group and splitting it into groups within that level. e.g. splitting āflowering plantsā into monocots and dicots.
Was there a place where thereās more information about this? Like splitting the āwinged and once-winged insectsā into beetles, true bugs etc. Iād like to be able to help with getting these IDs more precise, but Iād need a guide for how to tell the difference between a beetle and a true bug etc. (The presenter said it was easy!) Are these available, somewhere? I havenāt been able to find a reference to more info on the recording.
Attention all SF Bay Area, California, iNat Ambassadors! I am hosting an event on Wednesday, December 4th for the CalAcademy project āWinter Solstice Sea Star Search.ā If you are available to come out to play, please contact me @wildmare64 on iNat to RSVP so I will know to expect you, or ask me anything. Details: meet at 1:30 PM for the 3:46 PM minus 1.25 foot LOW tide. Location: Pinnacle Gulch Coastal Access Trailhead, Bodega Bay, Sonoma County (see link for directions below). The hike down to the beach is about a half-mile including some nicely constructed steps. This beach offers great tide-pooling at low tide events. Our focus will be sea stars of any species, but feel free to bio-blitz anything and everything! I will share swag from CalAcademy and mentor about using the app for best quality observations, safety and respect for speces while tide pooling, and we will meet up at 4:30 to hike back up before sunset and share best observations of the day, answer questions. Forecast is a high of 61 degrees and sunny. https://parks.sonomacounty.ca.gov/visit/find-a-park/pinnacle-gulch-coastal-access-trail
Iāve been searching for more info about the ID-a-thon so I can let others in my community know about it. Is there an online sign-up form or are iNat users automatically a part of it no matter where in Canada you are? Thanks for any feedback.
I just found out today that apparently there was some sort of deadline for signing up (I checked my email, and no, I never got any notification of a deadline), and also apparently I did not actually submit the form that I distinctly remember looking at.
Iām already doing some of the work, here. Who do I contact about fixing this? I sent an email to help, but Iām not having technical issues with the website, so I donāt know if thatās even going to be seen by someone who can actually help.
This is so demoralizing. I was excited about this program.
Hey there! Sorry about missing the sign-ups: we initially were going to keep it open all the time, but there was more enthusiasm than we anticipated and since we need to check prerequisites/get people into the ambassador email list, thatās much easier to do in batches than on a rolling basis. Luckily weāre going to re-open the sign-ups in just a few weeks (the week of January 5) and weāll put up an announcement for folks who meet the requirements, so keep an eye out for that!
If youāre already holding/helping out with events, THANK YOU! You can still fill out the reporting form and I will count them as your ambassador events once you get officially signed up.
Hi fellow Ambassadors! Iām one of just two on the Olympic Peninsula in the Pacific NW of the US. On 1/14/26 Iāll be making my first presentation about how to use iNat and how I used it before and after a recent trip to Panama. It really enhanced my learning, especially thanks to so many experts who helped with IDs. If youāre in the area, let me know and Iāll send you details about location and time.
I just wanted to reply back here for those who are following along in the forums, and to thank you again!
To everybody else: Via direct messages, we have worked out how to handle the event which Iām helping to plan in January, which was my main concern. (I am having all the feelings about everything right now. It is that time of the year.) I am happy about iNaturalist again.
Several years ago I created a slide deck for the City Nature Challenge called iNat or iNot to introduce new users to the idea of wild and natural vs captive and cultivated.
After some conversation on the Educator thread where I first posted the slide deck, Iāve been thinking about updating it to make it more useful to ambassadors by making it more of a template.
I know it is impossible to meet every contingency that ambassadors might want so the next logical step is to empower ambassadors to use the template to make their own version.
I was thinking about offeringan online workshop on how to edit the template, particularly for those new to Google slides, so ambassadors can add their own content while keeping the quiz format.
Would there be interest in such a workshop?
I have no details yet but I anticipate a Zoom session with a recording on YouTube, probably on a Sunday at UTC -6 hours.
Thoughts?
Please note that the slide deck has always had a Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution license so ambassadors can tuck in right away.
If there are any other ambassadors in North Texas, Iām on the east side of Dallas and I am starting to plan a spring bioblitz event for the Garland/Rowlett area.
I have an opportunity (or what might be an opportunity) for an ambassador in Southwest Ohio. My question isā¦ does an ambassador exist in Southwest Ohio? How would I find the ambassador(s) for a specific region?
Hi. Here is the link for the map of ambassadors. You can expand it as needed and the actual individuals and contact info will show up if you expand it enough. It is a link I got at the end of last year. Not sure how often the map is automatically updated, etc., but this should give you a starting point. Good luck!
Thanks for that link! I havenāt seen it before (maybe it was only sent to ambassadors?)
Iām not an ambassador, but want to offer my support or assistance to any ambassadors in my area, whether they want extra help answering questions from the eager throngs when they draw astoundingly large crowds at an event, or just want a bit of help with publicity.
Now I can contact them directly.
haha.
