Calling All Hong Kong iNaturalistas!

Hi Everyone!

I have tagged you as you are the top 220 identifiers for the Hong Kong territory....and we need your help!

Between 4 - 10 November, students from over 25 schools in Hong Kong will be making observations of nature around their school campuses on iNaturalist and they will need your help to offer identifications. They are encouraged to make 1st level IDs (i.e. Bird, Plant, Butterfly, etc) and I have made it clear that they are NOT to take pictures of indoor or outdoor potted plants.

The main objectives for this project is
1) To offer a different opportunity for teachers to teach about urban ecology and classification.
2) To foster a sense of biodiversity stewardship in their neighbourhoods through monitoring.
3) To nurture student's awareness, engagement and enthusiasm for Hong Kong's amazing urban biodiversity.
4) To help them contribute to our growing urban biodiversity database.

There may inevitably be pictures of poor quality (and maybe even the odd selfie!!!) yet, if you wish to leave a comment for them, please be constructive and positive.

Please join the Hong Kong Inter-School City Nature Challenge 2019 project and help our students! The more they know, they will care more.

Thankyou!
Shaun

Details:
ENG: https://www.wwf.org.hk/en/whatwedo/community_engagement_and_education/programmes_for_students_teachers/city_nature_interschool_challenge/
CHN: https://www.wwf.org.hk/whatwedo/community_engagement_and_education/programmes_for_students_teachers/city_nature_interschool_challenge/

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Posted on October 9, 2019 03:10 AM by shellfishgene shellfishgene

Comments

This looks great, glad that HK is making the move on bringing the city nature challenge to schools

Posted by yixianshuiesuan over 4 years ago

If well guided, this could be a very good initiative. Please teachers, make sure the students know what is OK and what is not OK.

Posted by susanhewitt over 4 years ago

Great initiative! I'm not really knowledgable about HK species, but i'll definitely help identify what i can!

Posted by naufalurfi over 4 years ago

This is an excellent initiative to raise awareness among young people about the importance of biodiversity. I regularly monitor Musaceae's new observations, so I will certainly look at those posted as part of this project. If I can give any advice as far as I'm concerned, it's to try to photograph banana trees with bunch and fruits. Not just a young plant growing with a few leaves. Otherwise, it is very difficult to determine. I wish you success with your project.

Posted by chris971 over 4 years ago

YAYAYAYAY - - no potted plants ;)

I will assidiously ignore any observtions that have the temerity to depict potted plants !

Posted by hkmoths over 4 years ago

Ja, mi amigo!, I love this event!!!
I hope I can help, and better, we can replicate this here at home!

Posted by aztekium over 4 years ago

I like potted plants least of all, but please don't ignore the potted plants. They need to get to correct genus, and then get marked as planted, the AI will learn them, and once enough are marked planted, the iNat system will mark them planted automatically. Also, even if you know only North American or European plants, you can help clean up, as the AI really only knows US/EUR plants, that is all the AI can suggest, and the students will fall for it. So, if you see US/EUR plants in HK, you'll have a pretty good idea that:
a) they are planted OR
b) they are AI-based mis-IDs (these can usually be ID to Dicots, Monocots, Ferns, or Pinales.)

Posted by lincolndurey over 4 years ago

seems like a nice idea! hopefully this doesn't turn out like the penang incident

Posted by kemper over 4 years ago

Love the mission and I will always support Hong Kong and enhanced awareness of its natural beauty. Feel free to have them tag me on any dragonflies or insects in general.

Posted by briangooding over 4 years ago

Thanks Shaun for continuing to iterate this event and make it better every time. I truly believe it is OUR job as naturalists to foster the next generation, particularly as we are experiencing a biodiversity crisis paired with an overall decreasing pool of young people going into the natural history/taxonomic fields.

Posted by lhiggins over 4 years ago

Sounds good. I'll keep that in mind when November roles around.

Posted by nathantaylor over 4 years ago

Hope the guidance helps this time around, looking forward to hopefully seeing lots of wild critters

Posted by hfb over 4 years ago

It's hard to learn "how to iNat" and I'm sure there will be a ton of newbie mistakes, but I'm looking forward to warmly welcoming the newbies! I hope our efforts will encourage more of them to notice and treasure the nature around them!

Posted by eekb over 4 years ago

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