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iNaturalist is one of the most popular community (citizen)-science platforms. It aims to connect the community with scientists and naturalists in order to create a worldwide biodiversity database. Due to its format, uploading observations and connecting with the scientific community is easy, making it accessible to a wide audience. Every observation contains its own information page, detailing the species’ seasonality or frequently visited locations in easily-understandable language. Implemented in classrooms across the world, iNaturalist has been deemed one of the most appropriate and efficient platforms to engage students in scientific research (Echeverria et al. 2021). It is an important software for teaching digital competency in education (Echeverria et al. 2021).

One iNaturalist project, called the Calgary Pollinator Project, is being developed in Calgary to increase knowledge of biodiversity in urban areas. The Calgary Pollinator Project was founded by Dr. Mindi Summers–a professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Calgary–in 2021. It was established with the goal of documenting pollinator-plant relationships in Calgary in order to better understand how these interactions function. As of July 2023, the community has grown to include 255 members, with over 7500 observations and 363 identified pollinator species. 

Here, we have developed a module that (1) teaches learners how to get started with iNaturalist, concentrating specifically on the tasks required for documenting species interactions, such as those between plants and pollinators, and (2) download and do simple analyses on plant and pollinator interactions to examine whether ecosystems are healthy.

 

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