Grab your hiking boots + favorite trail snack because Lexington’s second annual City Nature Challenge kicks off this weekend. The four-day event starts on Fri., April 29, and runs until Mon., May 2.

The City Nature Challenge is actually an international event that takes place in 200+ cities across the globe, but Lexington has a few local partners that are helping to bring this initiative to the Bluegrass — Floracliff Nature Sanctuary, Lexington Parks & Recreation, NABA-Central Kentucky + Berea College Outreach Forestry Center.

Think of this event as a city-wide research expedition where you get to be the scientist. The goal is to document Lexington’s unique plants, wildlife + fungi using a cellphone app called iNaturalist.
Here’s how it works:

Download the iNaturalist app.
Pick a location. It can be a be a nearby forest, farm, park, or your backyard.
Pretend you are Indiana Jones, go on an adventure + document Lexington’s biodiversity with photos or audio recordings.
Share your observations by uploading them to the iNaturalist app.
Learn about your discoveries on Kentucky’s iNaturalist website page.

For four days, we all get to explore the natural world around us. Our findings will help the real scientists and land managers document, study + protect Lexington’s wildlife. Here are some global numbers from the 2020 challenge:

41,000 people participated
815,000 observations were made
32,000 species were found
1,300+ rare, endangered, or threatened species were documented

On Mon., May 9, Lexington’s documentation will go live + results from the City Nature Challenge will be posted for the whole world to see. Let’s show ’em how the Bluegrass does it.

Use the hashtags #CityNatureChallenge + #CNCLexKY to showcase your findings on social media. Of course, we want to see your findings also. So don’t forget to tag us when uploading.