Feedback on the use of iNaturalist in BIOL 1407

At the end of the spring 2019 course I took a poll of my 71 students in BIOL 1407 (Structure and Function of Organisms). 52 of the students responded and one of the questions in the survey regarded iNaturalist. Note: the survey was anonymous so I did not know which student posted which comment or how they answered in the poll.

• It was a great app to use.
• I liked that it actually made me get outside in nature and pay attention to the organisms that we were learning about in class. I am not an outdoor person but I took many more walks, visited Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center twice, and the Wild Basin Nature Preserve. It really increased my observation skills. Maybe decreasing the number of vertebrates to 15? It was hard to find 20 different species- many of the ones I found were repeats.
• Made me very aware of other organisms around me. Sometimes I felt it was too hard to get so many observations, it was do able but it was a little harder to find the animals and critters.
• I liked it a lot. As I mentioned in my evaluation, it was very interesting to me because it got me outside and looking around at nature in a setting I normally wouldn't. I consider Austin a relatively urban city so it was surprising to see home many green spaces there are (even if a lot of them near me are pretty small or fenced off).
• The biggest thing I didn't like was on the user interface side of things of the app relating to default settings for GPS location, so it's not something you could change. One minor critique I had was that I found the protist segment difficult to do, as I used my cell phone to take the pictures and I was never able to get the cell phone holder to work correctly on the microscope for some reason. I would suggest that ACC invest in some better equipment for this, but I realize that funds for them might be hard to justify in the big scheme of things. Also, it was a lot of protists to find and I manged to get a lot of pictures of green algae. The samples of pondwater you brought in were a huge help and I feel that the class would not have been able to complete the assignment without them since not everyone lives near stagnant pondwater.
• For future classes, I think you should leave the numbers where they were (except maybe a fewer protists). I feel that overall, the numbers were reasonable and as you said, attainable with even a minor amount of effort. I managed to find a surprising amount of bugs and non-cultivated plants just walking around my apartment complex at night and in the early evenings. I enjoyed the two field trips we went on during class times to the park out back of ACC riverside, I never would have known about them without this class.
• I enjoyed iNaturalist for the fact that it made me become more aware of my surroundings. The field trip at the beginning of the semester was very helpful to me because it showed me how to look for things and how to be more connected to my environment. It is definitely something I will use if I am ever curious about an organism.
• Loved the class and iNaturalist! I use it all the time outside of class to figure out species of spiders/plants etc.!! only Note is that sometimes I felt like I had SOO much to study for the lab quizzes and that I wasn’t able to study all of it.
• I liked how it forced me to go out and hike (because I always want to but never feel like I had the time.) It was a good excuse to go exploring.
• I did enjoy the use of inaturalist for this course but many of the projects has too many observations that were mandatory. For instance, simply due to the nature of fungi it was hard to find many observations during the unit that this was due. Other than finding a large amount of observations it was a fun project to participate in and definitely encouraged more outdoor activity.
• I liked doing the INaturalist projects because it gets us to go out into nature and appreciate our surroundings. I do think there were some units where the observation number should have been a little lower. For example, the plants, the first unit and the invertebrates should have been the highest number and the protists and vertebrates should have been a little lower.
• I loved iNaturalist work. It is good in many ways;
• 1. searching organisms to take photo of them is a strange feeling. It had My mind occupied with diversity of organisms. I believe the most important tenet of learning is to repeat what you learn in periods of time. The effect of iNaturalist is that kept me busy with organisms and had me thought about them profoundly. It made awareness of their complexity and connection to me.
• 2.It helped me learn the name of every organism that I put its photo in iNaturalist. To learn more their names , help me get into their world in some ways
• 3.it thought me a new way of Approaching to the organisms.
• I loved using Inaturalist, I continue to use it even though the projects are over and will most likely continue to use it after the course. I really enjoyed the field trips.
• I feel dropping the number of observations required for each module just a small amount, but offering the reward of extra credit (or something to the sort) for meeting a higher quantity (either per module or overall for the class) would make iNaturalist much more enjoyable. While it doesn't seem like much to ask of the students, many of us are taking 12-15 credit hours of school, working full-/part- time, and still have to manage our time for the extensive amount of homework science/math instructors usually assign; or, we reside in an area that makes obtaining photos for the observations a bit more challenging. Point being, it feels like a chore, and takes away from the aim of making this a fun and unique learning experience. I'm not certain about my classmates, but for me, uploading observations to iNaturalist took around 5-7 hours total, for each module. Either let the students know the photos don't need to be cropped or adjusted to be perfect, or descriptions are not necessary, which is what consumed a large amount of my time.
• Getting started and completing the protists section were very challenging, and I really appreciated the help with field trips and having pond water provided. I also liked being reminded to take photos of organisms when they would randomly occur while we were in class, or on the field trip (I was that much of a novice).
• It was cool to see biology in real life as well as identify things that were related to the class material. However, it was hard finding as many observations that were required while living in the city. It was challenging but not impossible. Just very time consuming.
• I really enjoyed the use of iNaturalist! I thought it was a great way to engage the class even outside of the classroom. Along my iNaturatlist seeking I met some fellow iNaturalist enthusiast and was really cool talking and exploring with them!
• I found iNaturalist to be a really fun and engaging tool! It might be interesting to add a component where students attempt to identify reasonable observations posted by other people, maybe for extra credit. I'd try to really encourage students to collect any observations throughout the semester, as I often (being a full-time student and having a part -time job) found myself cramming to collect observations, though my time management is primarily the reason for this. I don't think there were necessarily too many observations required, but really pushing students to start early might make the workload seem more manageable. Keep using iNaturalist!
• I loved INaturalist. I loved it because it made me go out there and actually learn more about what I was taught in class. I would suggest that the quizzes also test students understanding of the pictures they uploaded using INaturalist so that they do not just post to get points but actually learn.
• I think the iNaturalist was really neat and I was not expecting to have such fun while taking this class, but iNaturalist really opened my eyes to what is in nature and helped me have the ability to understand the classifications, etc.
• I really enjoyed it. I think it only becomes hard if you don't do it consistently. It would have been helpful to know the observations in each module at the start and take photos throughout the semester with those goals in mind. But if you make an effort to take photos as you encounter things it's very doable.
• I like the iNaturalist stuff because since I started iNaturalist, I found many plants and animals around me, and it is a valuable experience.
• I actually really enjoyed iNaturalist! It gave me a new found appreciation for bugs and animals. The only thing I would say was maybe a few less observations would be great because we do have other courses that require just as much work and sometimes it was hard to meet the observation amount because I didn't have time to go look for bugs or animals. But other than that I really did enjoy using it and will continue using the app even after the class is finished!
• The only downside I had about iNaturalist was during the first module when we had to find 50 organisms. With it being winter during that time, I struggled to find so many. Other than that, personally, iNaturalist has been one of the BEST things I have ever been "forced" to complete for a grade as a student and it has changed my outlook forever when I go for a hike or a walk. Not only has it helped my grade but it also helped me discover my love for nature. It has made me observe the tiniest details in organisms I used to not think twice about and I get very intrigued about the different kinds of species I encounter. I often even found myself taking pictures of bugs and plants for fun and uploading them because I have a genuine curiosity to discover more. In an even broader sense, over this semester's course, my parents have heard me talk about how much I love iNaturalist and constantly saw me taking pictures and even went on an "iNaturalist aimed hike" with me. Afterwards, both my parents told me how that opened up their eyes to everything in nature as well. I have discovered a passion within myself for biology that I had never seen before. Among the talk between classmates, we all love it too! Please always incorporate iNaturalist!
• I think I naturalist has been a great use for the course. You can only learn so much in the classroom it really gives you a hands on experience to try to look and find the specific details in different organisms that we’re actually learning. It’s great that I can interact with other people and they can give me feedback on my findings. I strongly suggest for a iNaturalist to continue in future biology 1407 classes however the amount of observations needed for each unit depends really on which semester you’re in, specifically invertebrates . For instance, It makes sense to have 40 observations for the spring versus the fall semester for that unit.
• It really helped me when you had mentioned it at the beginning of the semester to always be taking pictures no matter what unit we were covering because I found that as we were moving along in the class I was ahead on my observations every unit versus my other classmates. I would strongly encourage to try to say that every time a new unit starts to always take pictures of anything you see. Hopefully that will help other future biology 1407 students to really take advantage and try not to be stressing the weekend it‘s due.
• I really liked the use of iNaturalist in this course because it was fun to just go out and find organisms to take pictures of. But at the same time it was stressful to find some types of organisms when I did not have a lot of time on my hand. I would really recommend all future students to begin as early as possible and to just take pictures of everything because if you start early then you won't be as stressed as I was when a deadline comes up.
• I enjoy iNaturalist because as students we got to experineced nature and learning new about it. It was interesting to find out how many plants, organisms are around us that can learn about. I would suggest having more days where we can go on field trips during lab time to complete our inaturalist, it can potentially not be full class time but partially.
• I liked being able to identify organisms that I found.
• I like the idea of iNaturalist. I think fewer observation requirements could have made it more fun. I definitely felt like I had to be out actively getting observations on a very regular basis in order to keep up with the requirements, but with everything else that is required in the class, it all got be a little tedious and it started to feel like I was checking boxes, so a lot of the enjoyment was lost on me because it just felt like it was another obligation and I felt like I had so much other stuff I needed to do for the class. I think less observations, could have made it a lot more enjoyable.
• Having an assignment due every Sunday was hard to keep up with while working full time.
• I loved using iNaturalist this semester. The website provided an outlet for me to find out about the animals I see every day but never knew anything about. It also allowed me to talk to many experts on wildlife which was very enriching. Beyond that, the iNaturalist goals for each module (ex. take 20 pictures of vertebrates) really motivated me to get out and enjoy nature. There wasn't really anything I disliked about it, beyond the fact that posting an observation and having it fade into obscurity with no identifications of the subject was disappointing.
• One improvement that could be made is searching for a location by typing it in. Other than that it was easy to use and quite enjoyable. I learned many new taxonomic names of the organism around me.
• I enjoyed taking part in citizen-science, I had a hard time finding fungi however.
• In regards to question eight, I do believe that for some observations there was a lot to do, but overall I enjoyed it. I do believe that iNaturalist taught me a lot about BIOL 1407, I think every 1407 class should continue to work on this project. iNaturalist was easy to work with, I did not find any it difficult whatsoever.
• I really liked the use of iNaturalist! I know that sometimes, I felt like it was difficult for me to try to get observations, but I know I needed to take walks. Maybe plan more field trips either during the week (doesn't have to be during the scheduled lab times) or on the weekends. I know it would have helped me meet all the goals a little bit more.
• iNaturalist was a fun and interactive project. It is refreshing to have a unique project such as inat instead of the typical papers. Not much to say on the dislikes as what makes this class unique is the inat.
• I think everything was pretty straight forward. I don't have any complaints or suggestions.
• I think using iNaturalist is a great way to practice what we learned in class. I really enjoyed the challenge of finding different observations for each module.
• It was fun and an easy A IF you could find everything. It was time consuming at times. I would suggest 5 less observations of insects..the insects were the hardest.
• Overall I liked the iNaturalist projects. They were great. The protists were the trickiest but you gave plenty of time in lab to get it done. 40 invertebrates sounded daunting in the beginning but I started relatively early and it made that much easier. I felt that the plants weren’t really in bloom when we had the section due so it wasn’t as fun to go out and look as it would have been a few weeks ago. 20 vertebrates is the perfect amount. It encouraged me to bird watch and I thoroughly enjoyed doing that. Birds are a lot harder to get good pictures of than I imagine!
• I really liked iNaturalist. I had never heard of it before but liked the concept of it. I will be using it in the future after this class!
• I enjoyed iNaturalist tremendously. It connected the course material with our surroundings. it made me more observant of the diversity of the environment and reinforced our interconnectivity with it.
• I like using iNaturalist. it is a fun and interactive way to get students engaged in biology in and out of class
• I would suggest possibly lowering the number of vertebrates from 20 to 15, or to allow for duplicate species (such as two separate observations of deer or armadillo, from different locations)
• I'd say use it more. It's a great way to boost the course grade and also incentive to go outside. I wish I wasn't living in an age where I need incentive, but it forced me to MAKE time.
• I loved the excuse to get out of the classroom.
• I liked using iNaturalist because it has opened a whole new perspective on the kinds of organisms around my home in general. I like that it can help identify various plants and animals rapidly. I will continue to use it after this class.
• The only inaturalist project I struggles with was the vertebrates. The insects were quite a lot if you are a procrastinator like me but still doable.
• I LOVED iNaturalist!! I had never heard of that before and I even had family and friends joining in on the fun. I even had my mom sending me a picture of a tree so I can find out what kind it was. Also, a friend of mine sent me a picture of a snake to see if it was poisonous or not. I will continue to use it after this class.
• I liked how it sort of forced me to go outside more and learn about the different species that live in my community, it definitely made me more aware about my surroundings. What I didn't like was that it didn't let me post videos; there were some organisms (like in the protist project) that moved too fast for me to take a good picture. A suggestion I have would be to decrease the amount of pictures for the module 5 project.
• I liked learning the names and families of the plants and animals I have been seeing locally around me my entire life. It has encouraged me to commit them to memory and even teach my friends their names. Also, I enjoyed learning that several of the wildlife I saw where actually related in ways I wouldn't have previously thought.
• The only thing I did not enjoy about iNaturalist was the number of observations we had to gather to get good grades. I understand there has to be a set number to make students put forth the effort of getting out and exploring, but some of the modules were downright difficult, and it ruined the fun of the project (the vertebrates and invertebrates). We were a spring semester course, which in Texas is wet and chilly, and honestly not a great time of year to find lots of insects/arachnids or wild animals. Maybe if the spring semester's numbers were skewed, so that we had to find more plants/protists and less animals, it would have made things still challenging, but not so challenging that it became a chore.
• I still think the inclusion of iNat is a genius addition to this course and should be kept within your curriculum, just please consider the seasons your students are participating in.
• I loved inaturalist in whole. It took me out of my comfort zone and really got me to go outside and explore the world. So much so that I have gone to Mckinney falls to hike and enjoy nature. My advice would be to start your observations early, do not push all on one day.
• I really enjoyed iNaturatlist and felt like I connected with nature more than I ever have. My one complaint would be some of the module observation requirements. When we covered fungi and plants, I felt like there were alot of observations to be made. These assignments is very time consuming and having a full class schedule made some of these assignments feel unrealistic.