Nature lover? You’re in the right place! Today we talk about “iNaturalist”, the community for naturalists who want to connect and share about the natural world.
iNATURALIST: THE SOCIAL NETWORK FOR NATURALISTS
This short article will tell you all about iNaturalist, a really interesting application based on the concept of “citizens’ science”.
WHAT IS iNATURALIST?
iNaturalist was founded by Ken-ichi Ueda and classmate Scott Loarie with the idea of taking scientific research one step further: that of the digital world and social networks. The purpose is to open the doors to all people passionate about the environment and those aspiring scientists and researchers who want to collaborate, sharing their naturalistic observations. In fact, it is a question of enhancing the concept of “citizens’ science”, where everyone can contribute to scientific research.
iNaturalist is a not-for-profit program helping people around the world learn what’s in their neighborhood and generating millions of data points for biodiversity research.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
To take part in this large community, all you need to do is log in to the website or the mobile app, enter your data and get activated immediately to explore, discover, record your observations and share them with everyone. The app is very intuitive and simple to use: just take a photograph of a plant or animal, upload it directly to the app or website and record a report that will be added to all the others. This allows us to be able to contribute to the science of biodiversity since we could also find rare species of animals or plants that will be analyzed by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Providing data is very simple, you just have to observe, photograph and upload photos on the website that will send this data directly to scientists who can use it in specific studies of flora and fauna.
The main purpose of iNaturalist is to let all citizens become protagonists by generating content which can be used in scientific researches that monitor changes in our ecosystem.
If you are a nature enthusiastic or keen on preserving our beautiful planet, we recommend you become part of the iNaturalist community. The mobile application is available for both iOS and Android devices and can be found here:
What do you think about iNaturalist? Leave your opinion here and perhaps check out Seek, the application that identifies plants and animals around you.