I started planning in late 2025 to give a presentations from the iNaturalist Resources. I had in mind that I’d also conduct a free, in-person, outdoor class of some sort later.
The resources helped organize my thoughts. I decided I’m better at making videos than giving live presentations and I used those presentations as inspiration for these two videos.
iNaturalist Explained for Beginners (5 min)
https://youtu.be/Y15mOREcGD8?si=pjTYH3Wua1rXA4MD
Make a Good Observation in iNaturalist (7+ min)
https://youtu.be/dH7iKxQnE_U?si=RdTDXUogFbWJvELP
For many years, I’ve been leading naturalist fields trips in my community and cultivated a naturalist community connected through email, a web site and social media to a lesser degree. I’m an amateur naturalist and I do this as a hobby.
In April 2026, I promoted the videos and a class scheduled for early May. I encouraged students who signed up for the class watch the videos. I had a little more than 20 students, spread across two consecutive sessions. Each session was 1.5 hours. I led the one session of the same class again on July 18 and had 12 students.
I think the videos turned out much better than any presentation I could muster, and I had better reach. As of July 2026, the beginner video has over 1000 views and the “good observation” video has over 300. Not much by YouTube standards but more people than I could fill a hall with in Corvallis, OR. (YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@neighborhood-naturalist)
My takeaway from conducting the outdoor classes is that I spent most of the time showing students how to navigate the app and how to take a set of photos for a usable observation. The classes didn’t yield a lot of observations. I’m OK with that because they learned what it takes to get to an observation that can either be useful or identified by other iNat users.
I’m glad most students watched my intro videos because, before they showed up to class, they received a baseline on why iNaturalist exists. I know naturalists who haven’t used iNaturalist, or a new to it, and they don’t really have a grasp of what the iNaturalist community is and what you’re supposed to do with the app.
I’ll probably do this class again. Maybe not this year but for sure next year. I’m not planning on conducting a bioblitz but I’m not saying I won’t. I went to a bioblitz this spring for the first time (I didn’t lead it) and there were many interesting observations. Most observations were made a few experienced naturalists and many beginners made very few. I haven’t decided how and where to conduct a bioblitz but I’d prefer that most people involved could meaningfully contribute. I’m not sure most beginners are ready for a bioblitz but I’ll need more experience with the bioblitz concept before I draw more conclusions.
I’ll be thinking about topics for more iNat videos and other outdoor events.
Don Boucher