Bridging Bytes and Blooms: Embracing Nature through Tech in the City Nature Challenge

Many people view nature and technology as separate entities and often view the two as in conflict. However, technology can be used to help us better understand and connect with nature under the right circumstances. Join Max Light-Pacheco, the Volunteer and Community Engagement Specialist for The Nature Conservancy in Oregon, as he talks about the way the City Nature Challenge has expanded community engagement in the natural world via technology.

Started in 2016 as a competition between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the City Nature Challenge (CNC) has grown into an international event, motivating people around the world to find and document wildlife in their own cities. Run by the Community Science teams at the California Academy of Sciences and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM), the CNC is an annual four-day global bioblitz at the end of April, where cities are in a collaboration-meets-friendly-competition to see what can be accomplished when we all work toward a common goal.More information will become available in March. The City of Salem is coordinating a series of City Nature Challenge opportunities April 26-29.

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