Event: Johnson County’s City Nature Challenge, April 25-28
What do you see when you walk out your door? This isn’t a mindfulness exercise; scientists want to know.
Johnson County residents will join folks in more than 600 cities and counties in the worldwide City Nature Challenge this April. It will be the community’s third time participating as one of only two Iowa counties — Polk and Johnson — in the challenge.
The City Nature Challenge began in 2016 as a competition between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and has since blossomed into a global event covering six continents. Its goal is to see community members take an interest in their area’s wildlife while gathering data to aid sustainability efforts.
Iowa City joined the international initiative in 2022, coordinated by the University of Iowa Office of Sustainability. It sat out for 2023 due to understaffing, but returned the following year on a larger scale, partnering with Johnson County Conservation to expand its local scope to all of Johnson County.
University of Iowa Sustainability Program manager Beth Mackenzie said including the whole county in the initiative, not just the Iowa City area, increases the potential for submissions from more rural parts of the county.
Community members partake via a free app, iNaturalist, which allows users to snap photos of wildlife and identify them in real time by drawing from an extensive database. These photos are geotagged, which lets researchers at the University of Iowa observe local findings during the event’s span.
“You can do it at your own pace and at your own leisure,” Mackenzie said. “And so I just want to encourage people to get outside and do what they can.”
Though Mackenzie said the event is too young to have recorded any consistent ecological changes in Johnson County yet, she hopes loyal community participation will translate into quality information for researchers.
“If we participate year after year, over time, it gives us insight into changes that might be happening,” Mackenzie said.
Last year the local effort drew 126 participants who returned 1,482 observations. Johnson County’s most common observation was the American Robin, but users also shared pictures of squirrels, turtles, frogs, snakes and more.
Besides wild animals, community members can also submit images of insects, plants and fungi. Even animal tracks can be reported, since the iNaturalist app has a feature that can identify species based solely off of footprints.
Mackenzie said the event offers a great opportunity to teach children about the environment. “It’s really meant for anybody. And you can just go in your backyard and do it.”
For those who want to explore beyond the confines of their yard, the UI Office of Sustainability and the Environment has linked a comprehensive list of public use areas within Johnson County that eager users can reference for their environmental adventures.
To make the event as accessible as possible, UI is also offering two in-person tutorials for using iNaturalist: one on April 26 at F. W. Kent Park at 6 p.m. and another the next day at the Iowa City Public Library, 1 p.m.
The app can be used anytime, even after the City Nature Challenge concludes. Curious users can even explore the app’s open source data to browse wildlife observations from across Johnson County to across the globe.
City Nature Challenge participants will also have the opportunity to reuse their iNaturalist skills at the BioBlitz at the Ashton Prairie Living Laboratory on July 12. That event is coordinated by Mackenzie and the UI Office of Sustainability and the Environment.
“The prairie is only about five years old, so it’s been really fun to see how it’s changing over time or what are some of the more common species that we’re seeing,” Mackenzie said.
And with the fifth year of Ashton Hill Prairie also comes the fifth anniversary of its BioBlitz.
“We love that it’s a pretty successful community event,” Mackenzie said. “We get many families and community members who attend, and some of them have been attending year after year. So the prairie is growing along with them, which is really fun.”
In contrast to the independent nature of the City Nature Challenge, the BioBlitz will see university faculty and students in attendance to help participants with identifying local species, and share how the day’s findings will factor into their research.
Mackenzie also urges those who want to keep investing in the community’s sustainability efforts to join in a UI-sponsored Miyawaki Forest Tree Planting beginning on April 25. This initiative will utilize the Miyawaki Method, a dense planting technique designed for biodiversity and sustainability.
The event’s kickoff falls, appropriately, on Arbor Day. Planting will continue over the following four days, or until it’s complete.
Registration for both the Miyawaki Forest Tree Planting and the Ashton Prairie BioBlitz can be done online. The City Nature Challenge does not require registration, but participants can prepare for the event by downloading and testing out the iNaturalist app.
All-terrain wheelchairs at ICNC
Testing out one of the Indian Creek Nature Center’s new all-terrain wheelchairs allowed 15-year-old Rylie Erbacher to join her family on a hike for the first time ever.
“It took a bit to get used to driving it, but it’s super nice and it goes over the grass and gravel so well,” said the Cedar Rapids teen.
The center purchased three of the big-wheeled, self-driving wheelchairs (two adult-sized and one child-sized) following a successful fundraising campaign last year that brought in more than a quarter million dollars. Use of the chairs is free and open to anyone with permanent or temporary mobility impairments. Call 319-362-0664 or visit in person to reserve.
“My favorite spot was the Sycamore Loop to the east of the Nature Center, next to the creek,” said Steve Kriz, who tried out an all-terrain wheelchair during ICNC’s summer BioBlitz. “I sat in one spot to listen to the wind going through the trees and watched the leaves and branches sway with the wind. … Then I lost track of time on the trail and had to call the Nature Center to let my wife know I was OK.”
This article was originally published in Little Village’s April 2025 issue.
