Photo: Chad Madden via Unsplash.com

By Laura Durenberger-Grunow - Boreal Community Media - May 19, 2025


The University of Minnesota Extension and the Cook County Aquatic Invasive Species Program through the Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) will present a virtual training on using apps for nature observation and reporting invasive species. The workshop, titled "Nature Apps: Everyone knows a little, together we know a lot!", will take place on June 12th from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. via Zoom.

Megan Weber and Andrea Lorek Strauss, from the University of Minnesota Extension and SWCD, will lead the session. Hosted by Cook County Higher Education, the training will focus on iNaturalist and EDDMapS.

iNaturalist is a platform that allows users to upload photos of organisms they observe in nature. The app then helps with identification through automated suggestions or community input. As of November 2023, iNaturalist had nearly 2.9 million users and 165 million observations across more than 430,000 species globally, making it one of the top citizen science apps. Additionally, the platform holds almost 67 million observations specifically for plants, covering over 154,000 species by nearly 2 million users, making it one of the largest for botanical data.  

The second app is EDDMapS (Early Detection & Distribution Mapping System). This app is designed to document the presence and report the locations of non-native and invasive species. Organizations use the data collected through EDDMapS for monitoring and management purposes.  

The workshop on June 12 will provide practical guidance on how to use both iNaturalist for general nature identification and exploration, and EDDMapS for contributing to the monitoring of invasive species within Cook County and beyond. 

Learn more and register online.