Willow Bend Nature Challenge

Enjoy spending time outdoors (even right outside your house)? Love wildlife and plants? Want to learn more about them? Or are you an expert in your field and can help identify observations? Join the Willow Bend Nature Challenge.

Willow Bend, in partnership with City of Flagstaff Open Space, Coconino County Parks and Rec, and the Junior Entomology Academy will be hosting a community wide Nature Challenge for Flagstaff and Coconino County during the month of June. By participating you will automatically be entered to win awesome prizes each week! Plus you can help contribute important information to citizen science projects, learn new things, and connect with other nature lovers, scientists and experts in our area.

The Willow Bend Nature Challenge will be done through iNaturalist, a free observation platform that can be used on your smart phone or computer. It acts as a place for people to record observations, learn how to identify organisms and interact with other enthusiasts and experts. Observations from iNaturalist also contribute to biodiversity science. Anyone can freely access and use this information.

HOW TO JOIN THE NATURE CHALLENGE?

If you don’t already have an iNaturalist account downloaded on your phone or computer go to the iNaturalist page to learn how to create an account, or view this tutorial video. It’s really easy, iNaturalist is designed to be used by everyone!

Once you have an account:

NOW WHAT?

Start recording observations (view this “making” observations tutorial to learn how). These can be flowers, trees, insects, reptiles, mammals, birds etc. Observations you make in the Coconino County area will automatically be included in the project and contribute to the City’s and County’s biodiversity database.

WIN PRIZES

Each day the Willow Bend team will highlight the “observation of the day” and share it on our Facebook page and Instagram. Each week all project participants who made observations will automatically be entered into a raffle and win weekly prizes. The final challenge winner(s) will be selected on June 30th.

QUESTIONS?

Feel free to contact us with any questions at info@willowbendcenter.org. We are here to help you take on the challenge successfully!