City Nature Challenge 2021: Cleveland-Akron-Canton

By Renee Boronka

The City Nature Challenge started in 2016 as a competition between San Francisco and Los Angeles to see which city could document the most diversity of species in a weekend. Since then, the event has grown into international event, motivating people around the world to find and document plants and animals in their regions.

The 2021 City City Challenge will take place from Friday, April 30 through Monday, May 3 and is open to ALL. Participants take photos of what they see and upload them using the iNaturalist app. Your observations will be verified by experts via the iNaturalist platform. The goal is to get people outside, observing nature and logging it for our Team during the competition. From a simple walk around your backyard to a visit to a local natural area—all time outside will increase our observations.

In 2020, the Cleveland-Akron-Canton team placed 39th overall, observing 6,227 species. Please consider joining our Team as we compete with cities from around the world to document the most species diversity. Let’s break that record in 2021…

Join the 2021 Cleveland-Akron-Canton team

Results from the 2020 City Nature Challenge

For those of you who are unfamiliar with iNaturalist, the Educator Resource Center at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History is offering an information session on Tuesday, April 27 from 5:30-7:30 pm to help you get involved in the upcoming City Nature Challenge. During the virtual session, you’ll learn about the iNaturalist platform, understand how your observations inform current science and learn more about the importance of community driven science data. To register for the Info Session, please visit: https://bit.ly/3q7pGuI