Global nature challenge kicks off in Calgary and around the world [Video]

A  four day global challenge that’s one of the largest citizen science events on the planet kicks off Friday, running from April 26th to the 29th.

Kaya Konopnicki, the president of Nature Calgary, says people living in 48 countries are competing to see which city has the most urban biodiversity, including 40 Canadian cities.

“It’s a global competition so we’re competing against cities from all around the world,” she said. “But really what we’re competing against is Edmonton.

“We want to beat Edmonton and see if we can get more data than them,” she added. “We had a lot of participants in the past years, we’ve surpassed over 10,000 checklists and we hope to do that again this year.”

Sharing and learning

Throughout the challenge, citizens connect with nature by sharing and learning about plants, insects and animals around them.

Those observations are recorded through photographs and then uploaded onto the iNaturealist app. …