August: Call for applications open October: Applications due November: Select 3-5 collaborating projects as 2016 GNP Science Missions Early 2016: Science missions active online

Project History

Acknowledgements The Great Nature Project is supported by funding from the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI).

Since 1888, National Geographic has been inspiring people to care about the planet. In 2013, National Geographic launched the Great Nature Project (GNP) to encourage people to get outside, explore nature, and share photos of biodiversity in "a project as big as the world itself". The goal was to make participation as easy as possible to reach the greatest number of people. In its first year, GNP reached over 17,000 people and amassed >300,000 photos by aggregating data from 9 different photo/observation-sharing platforms. However, data quality varied wildly, and there was not a pre-defined scientific use for the data since the initial goal was about engagement and participation. GNP is in a position to generate considerable amounts of biodiversity occurrence data, and we want to connect with people who want to use it.

•  Promotion of your project as part of National Geographic’s Great Nature Project

•  Help with public communication of results •  Possible future funding opportunities

What’s in it for you?

What else is the Great Nature Project planning?

Global Snapshot May 15-25 During this time, we especially encourage everyone to get outside and share photos of their encounters with biodiversity as part of a “global snapshot”. The goal of the global snapshot is to document life on Earth all over the world during a specific window of time that is repeated annually. Over time, this will provide data that can be used to answer scientific questions or provide useful information to decision makers. For ease of participation using iNaturalist mobile apps, observations made during that time and submitted to iNaturalist will all become part of the Global Snapshot. Please let us know if your organization is interested in championing the Global Snapshot by posting signage, hosting events, or just spreading the word to encourage participation from your area. Learning missions We plan to offer themed learning missions that prompt participants to find and photograph specific types of organisms, behaviors, adaptations, or habitats. These activities should be accessible, fun, and challenging enough to be interesting. We expect to have learning missions available (in some form) by the end of 2015.

Likely Timeline

Poster  prepared  for  Citizen  Science  Association  Meeting,  February  11,  2015,  San  Jose,  CA,  USA  

•  Intended and able to answer a specific scientific question or questions about biodiversity

•  Broad geographic scope •  Preferably broad temporal scope •  Project is primarily located on iNaturalist/

GNP (i.e. if you already have a project on a separate platform, you need to be able and committed to working iNaturalist observations into your current system somehow)

•  Preliminary analyses and communication of results at regular intervals

•  Active participation in the GNP/iNaturalist community

Criteria for science mission collaborators

Collaborators with big research questions that can be answered using observational biodiversity data (aka “data consumers”). We are especially interested in ideas from graduate students!

Wanted:

Since National Geographic is not trying to answer a specific research question, we want to collaborate with and support individuals or groups that want to answer an interesting scientific question that can further engage participants in the Great Nature Project. Through this collaboration, we also want to empower participants to explore answers to their own questions in the data.

Science Missions

The mission of the Great Nature Project is to encourage direct exploration of nature by creating learning opportunities and supporting citizen science. We empower people to share their observations of biodiversity, connect with other participants, and learn about nature wherever they are.

Mission Statement

iNaturalist is one of the 9 platforms currently linked with the Great Nature Project. In 2014, GNP created a portal directly into iNaturalist from the GNP site and began encouraging iNaturalist contributions as the preferred method of participation. The existing structure, community, and functionality within iNaturalist makes it an excellent platform for the Great Nature Project to develop more targeted learning and science missions for participants.

Collaboration with iNaturalist

Carrie  E.  Seltzer   Scott Loarie  

Finding  synergies  between  data  generators  and  data  consumers  in