South Dakota Nature in Place's Journal

The South Dakota Discovery Center in Pierre challenges all South Dakotans to Nature in Place during the month of April by learning about, observing, documenting and most of all enjoying the nature around them at home.

Special projects director Anne Lewis says that nature in place is intended to connect people to the wild plants and animals right where they are. “Your backyard or, really, any patch of grass is a great place to observe nature,” says Lewis. “You don’t need wilderness to see wild things.” Lewis points to dandelions, robins, and even common household insects like box elder bugs and spiders in the bathtub as “no wilderness nature”.

Participating in Nature in Place can be as simple or involved as you want. South Dakotans can document observations of nearby nature using iNaturalist, an app that records encounters with organisms. Take photos or record sounds of a wild and natural plant or animal. Then upload the observations to the iNaturalist website using the app. Lewis says that a project has been set up at https://bit.ly/sdnatureinplace so anyone can see the observations made.

But if you would prefer just to observe and not document, Lewis says there is an app for that. The Seek app is similar to the iNaturalist app but it does not collect any user information nor does it even require an account. Open the app and point your camera at a plant or animal and the app will attempt to identify it using iNaturalist’s computer vision technology. “This is a great app for families to use on a walk,” says Lewis, though the app is better at identifying those organisms that have a lot of records in iNaturalist.

Lewis also says that Nature in Place includes those who want to leave the tech in the house. “Sometimes, I like to go outside without worrying about documenting or identifying. It’s very relaxing to just be out in nature. That’s really the main goal.”

The South Dakota Discovery Center is holding a FaceBook live sessions on using iNaturalist and Seek for families and teachers during the week of April 6-10.

I want to give a shout out to all the folks who, intentionally or not, are contributing to the SD #NatureInPlace project. We have 46 observers, many of whom have contributed for the first time this month!

On this 50th Earth Day, I want to celebrate the love people have for wild places and wild organisms, even if the wildness is just out our backyard. There is so much worth protecting in nature. And when we protect nature, we protect ourselves because without nature we have no air, water, soil or, for many of us, beauty.

Keep observing and sharing. Your research grade observations are being added to GBIF and all the observations are being made available for teachers to use to teach local food webs, biodiversity, habitats, and more.