Events
Bishop Museum Invites Keiki and ʻOhana To Take Part in 2024 City Nature Challenge
Bishop Museum invites keiki and ʻohana to take part in the 2024 City Nature Challenge, a global community science effort to document biodiversity around the world.
# Bishop Museum Invites Keiki and ʻOhana To Take Part in 2024 City Nature Challenge
Event supports global community science effort to document biodiversity around the world.
Honolulu, Hawaiʻi — Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, the State of Hawaiʻi Museum of Natural and Cultural History, invites keiki and ʻohana to take part in the 2024 City Nature Challenge starting Friday, April 26, 2024.
The City Nature Challenge is an opportunity for participants to explore and learn about the natural world. The Challenge is a global BioBlitz-style event that calls on current and aspiring community scientists, nature and science fans, and people of all ages to observe and submit pictures of wild plants, animals, and fungi using free apps such as iNaturalist. Understanding that scientists cannot be everywhere at once, community observations document incredible finds in the field that may otherwise be missed.
During the 2023 City Nature Challenge, there were over 2,500 observations of rare and endangered species, an influx of information that provides scientists, educators, urban planners, and policymakers insight into the biodiversity of urban locales throughout the world.
This year, Oʻahu and Hawaiʻi Island are participating "cities" in the Challenge and will be competing against more than 600 cities worldwide to document as many species as can be found in the wild. Bishop Museum and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa are hosting institutions for the challenge on Oʻahu.
The City Nature Challenge involves two parts:
- April 26 – 29:
An *Observation Period*, where participants take pictures of plants, animals, and any other signs of life in their backyards, and upload them to the iNaturalist community science platform.
- April 30 – May 5:
An *Identification Period*, where participants log on to iNaturalist and help identify the uploaded photos posted during the Observation Period.
"It's important as a museum and as scientists who study the natural world that we include the community in what we do," said Calder Atta, Bishop Museum Ichthyology collections manager, and organizer for Oʻahu's 2024 City Nature Challenge. "Nature is all around us and knowing what species are where helps us study and protect them. The City Nature Challenge is a great way for citizen scientists to actively participate in this process."
Learn more about the City Nature Challenge at CityNatureChallenge.org.
In celebration of the City Nature Challenge on Oʻahu, Bishop Museum will host a gathering for participants, nature enthusiasts, and those who wish to learn more about biodiversity to connect and share stories over food, drinks, and a special presentation by Kapiʻolani Community College lecturer Brian Deis.
City Nature Challenge Oʻahu: Meet-and-Greet Gathering
- Thursday, May 2, 2024
- 5-7 p.m.
- Location: Atherton Hālau
The City Nature Challenge Oʻahu meet-and-greet gathering at Bishop Museum is free with RSVP. Details, including the registration link, can be found on the event calendar, BishopMuseum.org/Events.
About Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, the State of Hawaiʻi Museum of Natural and Cultural History
Bishop Museum’s mission is to inspire our community and visitors through the exploration, celebration, and perpetuation of the extraordinary history, culture, and environment of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific. The Museum was founded in 1889 by Charles Reed Bishop in memory of his wife Bernice Pauahi Bishop, a royal descendant of King Kamehameha I. Today, the Museum thrives as an educational center for the community and is widely regarded as the world’s premier institution for Hawaiian and Pacific content.
Bishop Museum’s vast collections of more than 25 million objects and specimens represent nine disciplines and include more than 22 million biological specimens, over 2 million cultural objects, 115,000 historical publications, and 1 million photographs, films, works of art, audio recordings, and manuscripts. These collections tell the stories of the cultures and biodiversity of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific as well as the proud legacy of scholarly research spanning 130 years.
Bishop Museum proudly serves more than 200,000 visitors each year, including 20,000 children on school visits. Guests are encouraged to pre-plan their trip to #HawaiisMuseum with its free digital guide, available through Bloomberg Connects.
To learn more about the Museum’s research, collections, exhibits, and programs, visit BishopMuseum.org, follow @BishopMuseum on Facebook and Instagram, visit Bishop Museum’s YouTube channel, or call (808) 847-3511. Bishop Museum is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Bishop Museum is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer, and welcomes applicants from the military, veterans, and those with disabilities. Learn about careers at Bishop Museum at BishopMuseum.org/Careers and on its LinkedIn page.
Bishop Museum Press is Hawaiʻi’s oldest book publisher and one of the first scholarly publishers in the Western Hemisphere, and has published over 1,200 titles and distributed over 1 million books in 72 countries worldwide. Bishop Museum hosts a restaurant and gift shop on campus, Tūtū’s Place by Highway Inn and Shop Pacifica by Nā Mea Hawaiʻi.