For this blog post Zach was tasked with talking about his experience in the iNaturalist Bioblitz event which tasks citizens to record observations in their greater area for the sake of citizen science. This is not his first time engaging in citizen science which he’s done for other NR classes. And while he doesn’t particularly find a personal interest in much of ecology, he does both understand its use and appreciate the fact others are engaged in it. That being said, he did participate in the Bioblitz event. He explored locations in Red Rocks Park and some small exploring in Centennial woods.
In these areas he trudged around in the woods and scanned whatever things he found interesting. He notably didn’t scan very many things, but he still did. Things such as Canada Mayflower, Dutchman’s Breeches and the Round Lobed Hepatica were finds he found interesting and unique.
At least the ones he was able to identify using iNaturalist’s partner app Seek. He found it somewhat frustrating that he couldn’t identify these things directly through the iNaturalist app, preferably he would have wanted that feature to be included or better included into the app. The app also was unable to find his location even when he allowed the app to track his location. This may have been a fault of his on device but it was still a nuisance to pick the location he was at over and over again. Some of the sepcies he weren’t able to successfully identify were also animals. For instance he found a very small and interesting spider he wasn’t reliably able to get a picture of that he thought would be interesting. However, because he wasn’t able to identify it, it wasn’t able to be added to the bioblitz.
Otherwise, Zach’s biggest issue is that he is not very interested in ecology. Considering other people and project’s identifications compared to his, he hasn’t contributed very much. He finds not much issue in this however, for he is content in not being the one who looks at plants all day. Don’t get him wrong, he understands why people are interested and do it all day, it’s just not his preference and he finds it tedious. He much more likes presenting these topics and the findings of others for those who can utilize it. That is his role as he sees it, still a hands on approach but in a different field, through application rather than discovery. Looking at ecology is still useful for him though, through this he can see how ecologists report and show their findings. So while this process may not be as important to him as it is to others, he still understands why it is being done and where it may come into his life again.