- one of the first things i did when i started becoming more active on iNaturalist was to create places representing a few neighborhoods in the area. i made sure to include a few places that had few observations but were locally significant, such as the Third Ward, home to folks like George Floyd and even Beyoncé. once a place exists, you can create projects, subscribe for updates, and otherwise keep a better track of what’s going on there.
- in the observation of the day and similar posts, there could be a more deliberate effort to highlight what’s going on in BIPOC-dominated places, even if might not always be practical to identify BIPOC users.
- i don’t know if this is the case elsewhere, but locally, if you look at the demographics of school kids vs the demographics of people in, say, the central business district, you definitely see a large racial difference. i mention this because sometimes i notice in the forum that folks are annoyed by school projects. i don’t know what kind of support is provided to schools, but maybe extra support can be provided to schools that can be determined to serve BIPOC. (maybe there’s even grant money to be collected for such extra efforts?) those kids and teachers could go on to be better future ambassadors for iNat.
More thoughts:
- it’s sort of been covered elsewhere, but it may be relevant to think about how some folks might use iNat differently that others and how the platform could be developed address those differences. for example, suburbanites with deep pockets might have computers and fancy mobile devices and unlimited data plans with great coverage, but others might not have those kinds of resources…
- maybe combining #4 and #3 above, it might be interesting to do a deep dive to figure out the exact steps it would take to start an iNaturalist club at 1-3 middle or high schools in DC Public Schools (whose kids are majority black). the end product could be a guide + video that could be used by others to start their own school clubs. i bet going through a process like that would reveal a lot of things to consider. (where do you get the tech? where do you find the nature? can you find kids who are interested enough in nature to join a club like this? what kinds of competing concerns and interests do such kids have? do you need to bring in outside partners from, say, a local natural science museum to help connect some dots?) i also bet with the proper guidance, there are all sorts of interesting skills that could be learned by joining such a club (ex. photography, sound recording, survey methods, visualizing data in charts and maps, open source coding, etc.) one possible approach might be:
- find teachers and kids from 3 schools who might be interested in starting iNaturalist clubs at their schools.
- find local experts – scientists, artists, etc. who are using iNaturalist – and ask them commit time to speak to kids to talk about what they do and they incorporate iNaturalist into what they do.
- find community members or other partners who might be able to provide other resources (like old gear or tech).
- maybe organize the club so that kids meet once a week for an hour. maybe the core activity in each session can be rotated between 3 things. one week could be primarily an exploration week, where kids just go around to see what they can observe and identify and learn to use the system. the next week could be a connecting-the-dots week, where a local expert visits and talks about what they do and how how the kids’ iNaturalist efforts could be incorporated into such work. (each expert could rotate through the schools, if there are multiple schools.) the third week could be kids working on specific longer-term projects (see next point).
- maybe ask the kids to accomplish 2 projects during the school year. one could be organizing a bioblitz. another could be something more focused on using the observations from iNaturalist – ex. making a mural of the interesting insects that they’ve discovered; making a song/rap or some samples that incorporate the nature sounds they’ve recorded; monitoring / identifying the good and bad insects at the school garden; maybe creating a blog or video series documenting the life or signs of life of interesting local organisms like a significant tree throughout the seasons and all the other creatures on that tree or maybe signs of a family of local raccoons or a nest of birds, etc…
- team lunches at a BIPOC-owned restaurants or team retreats utilizing BIPOC-owned facilities… BIPOC vendors in general
- is there or could an initiative be created to collect people’s old tablets and smartphones to be given to schools and libraries in neighborhoods with low access to tech? i know a lot of libraries offer desktops, but maybe smartphones for checkout preloaded with certain apps like iNaturalist might help bridge a tech gap in certain places, if such a gap exists? old cameras, sound recorders, binoculars, microscopes, etc. fit in this category, too.
- maybe a collaboration with, say, Lyft or Uber to offer free rides to and from natural areas from local libraries or something like that on CNC days?