What is a Citizen Naturalist?

Citizen naturalists are people concerned about the environment who choose to help make a difference both locally and nationally. They spend time outside, observing nature with a critical lens. 

Anyone can be a citizen naturalist – all you need is a passion for nature and helping your community! 

Some examples of activities commonly performed by citizen naturalists:

• Cleaning up a local park or stream.
• Teaching a water monitoring class or educating children about ecosystems and threats to wildlife.
• Working to get your town certified as a Community Wildlife Habitat.
• Submitting observations to a citizen science program.

Citizen Science

One of the most popular ways that citizen naturalists are involved with the community is through a citizen science program.  Citizen science is where the public volunteers time to assist scientists in their research.  Citizen scientists can support professional researchers in a lot of ways – by submitting data, sharing experiences or spreading valuable information.  Scientists benefit from having a lot more data to analyze and a pool of volunteers willing to help. 

Citizen science programs vary in type and scope.  You might prefer to work on a local level – an example is a project to collect data on the nutrient levels in an area stream.  Some of the more popular citizen science projects are nationwide.  Many of the large scale citizen science projects have websites where you study up and learn protocols before heading into the field.  

What you do is up to you!

To learn about national projects, visit our citizen science projects page. 

National Wildlife Federation’s Wildlife Watch

Wildlife Watch is a fun education program to introduce the public to citizen monitoring, science and species identification.  Individuals, groups and families are invited to observe nature and share their observations.  Through the Wildlife Watch website, participants are able to download a list of plants and animals to watch for in their state and then share the results of their experience with NWF and other Wildlife Watchers. 

 

Visit Wildlife Watch today!  - www.nwf.org/watch