Your smartphone does a great job keeping you glued to your screen. But it can change how you learn and connect with nature too. The iNaturalist app can transform the greenest beginner into an outdoors enthusiast. 

The free iNaturalist app for Android and iOS uses familiar social media functions; if you can upload a photo to Facebook and tag a friend, you can use iNaturalist. But within the app, you tag plants and animals as you find them.

“It’s like Pokémon GO for nature,” said Becca Tucker, Great River Greening’s program manager for the Twin Cities metro area.

Also, the iNaturalist community and observations help Great River Greening get more eyes on the ground - our team of ecologists benefit when volunteers report their findings. Throughout the seasons, we can see what is popping up where, such as plants, spring ephemerals, or even invasives, and what critters are inhabiting the space.

When you tag within a Great River Greening project site, you help with important restoration work. Projects, defined by park or boundary, are created to compile data specific to that location. This information establishes a baseline measure of biodiversity including before, during, and after the restoration process. Your contributions matter — they introduce, educate, and engage the public with our work and important natural areas.

What if you take a photo and you don’t really know what you’re looking at? iNaturalist uses image recognition technology along with a strong community of users to identify plants and animals in pictures that users share. The iNaturalist community loves nothing more than to help ID. Feel free to take a stab at it yourself with the app’s identification guides.

Also, your photos are geotagged. For instance, if someone is on the hunt for a pair of owlets that you just spotted, your photo can lead the way. 

iNaturalist is a beginner-friendly app; download it for free from the App Store or Google Play to get started.