Maricopa County Parks and Recreation: Discovery Station – Connect with Nature through your Phone

If you love taking pics of nature and the desert around you, then this is the program for you! Stop by an information table where Ranger Jacque will teach you how to use your phone to identify and document your nature findings to help the scientific community. Love nature but don’t know what plants and animals live in the desert? Take the guessing game out of naming your finds and learn how to identify desert life by using THE best naturalist apps available today, particularly the iNaturalist app*. The app’s computer recognition with help you identify your observations with verification by an expert, so anyone can do it! This is a casual, come-and-go discovery station, not a structured program. Make sure to bring your smart phone adequately charged. *Due to limited connectivity in parks, it’s advised to download the iNaturalist app while on wi-fi before arriving at the park. Once comfortable using the app, we invite everyone to return as a park citizen scientist on April 25-28 for the City Nature Challenge, an international effort that encourages all citizens to find and document plants and wildlife on iNaturalist in cities across the globe. This bioblitz-style competition challenges local communities to make the most observations in nature during this 4-day period, and then this data is available for science, management, and conservation. So this April 25-28, connect with your open spaces, your community, and other global naturalist using only your phone or camera to record nature wherever you go! For more info, check out www.citynaturechallenge.org. MEETING LOCATION: Nature Center