(Describer) Bent over, Joe stares at a road through his phone.

[jazz playing]

(silly voice) Lizard. Snail. Bug. Ooh, that's cool.

(Describer) A car pulls up.

[honk]

Get out of the road. I'm working here.

(Describer) He looks at flowers through the phone.

Wow.

[upbeat jazz playing]

(Describer) He takes a photo, then he bends down and looks at other flowers on the ground. He gets something on his finger.

Awesome.

(Describer) He looks through the phone at the tiny bug.

So cool.

(bug) I will eat you.

(Describer) The bug says, "I will eat you."

Okay, you little cute baby monster. Go off and be the killer that you were meant to be.

(Describer) Standing...

Hey, smart people. Joe here. No, I'm not losing my marbles. I'm actually doing a science. Specifically, that's me being an amateur naturalist, someone who studies the patterns and relationships between different species in nature. It's something super fun and educational that anyone can do, no matter how old you are or where you live. Now, whether you live in the woods or the suburbs or in the middle of the concrete jungle, or if you never leave home at all, nature is all around you, even if it doesn't seem like it. It will blow your mind to know how much wildlife is right there at your fingertips. All you need is a smartphone with a camera and some curiosity.

[intro music playing]

(Describer) Title: It's Okay to Be Smart. Joe stands in a yard.

Today I'm going to show you how you can contribute to actual scientific research without even leaving your backyard, and how much fun it can be. Yes, what you observe can help scientists with their research right now. Because scientists can't be everywhere at once. But together, we can be in a lot of different places. It's a way that everyone can be a naturalist and observe the world around us and how it's changing. Here's how it works. You download this app, iNaturalist. It's a joint initiative by the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society that lets people like you and me observe, identify, and record the plants, animals, and fungi we see, then share them with a worldwide social network. They aren't sponsoring this video in any way. I just really love this app, and I think you will too. It's totally free, it's a great thing to do at home, and it's fun. This is basically Pokemon Go, only the creatures are real. And instead of capturing them in little red and white balls, you just take a picture of them and share them with the world. When you see something interesting, just snap a photo and upload it to iNaturalist. Bam, I just did science. The app will analyze the photo, compare it to other observations, and give you potential IDs for what you found. The AI says I found an orange sulfur butterfly, and that looks like a perfect match to my photo. I mean, this is nuts that a machine I can hold in my hand can identify a plant or an animal just from a photo. INaturalist does this using computer vision, a machine-learning algorithm trained with a database of more than 10 million photos, all with confirmed IDs, analyzes your photo to look for a visual match and give you a suggested ID. And since a lot of species look really similar, it also factors in things like your location too. And of course, all good science is about verification, so that photo gets shared to a community worldwide of naturalists and professional scientists to verify the ID and make corrections if necessary. And once the ID is verified, it gets added to a global database, where scientists can get access to the time, the location, and the ID for millions of observations around the world from citizen scientists like you and me.

(Describer) Title: How to Be a Naturalist.

Now, you really want to look for wild things, so maybe not the grass in your yard or that potted plant you bought at the store. But even cultivated plants, the plants that we plant, can attract wildlife. So turning over leaves and looking into flowers is a great place to start. I'm lucky to live in a place that has just so many awesome wildflowers, like bluebonnets. That's the state flower of Texas. Here's a coneflower that's coming up. I think that's what that is. I think it's called a primrose. We'll find out.

(Describer) The app identifies a bug as a Texas Flower Scarab.

Whoa. Something I guess having breakfast in there.

(Describer) Joe finds a flower called an Indian Blanket.

Oh, I love these. One of my favorite parts of spring.

(Describer) He finds a caterpillar.

Hello. Hello, fuzzy friend.

(Describer) The app says an ermine moth.

What are you? All you need is a little luck and a little patience.

(Describer) He takes a photo of a black winged insect.

Got it! Yeah! And even things that don't seem very interesting can be super important to scientists. Take this roly-poly, or potato bug, or wood louse, whatever you call them. There are a lot of species that look like this. They might look the same to you or me, but an iNaturalist user once spotted one that hadn't been seen in 90 years. You can look around your neighborhood, too. Just no trespassing, okay? Places where there's a lot of plants attract a lot of animals, like this area here in my garden. Look up, down, all around. You never know what you're going to find. Here's a patch that's a perfect example. It looks like there's just maybe, I don't know, four or five plants here, but if you look closer, you can find a lot more. So let's dig in and see what else is in here. All kinds of weird beetley things eating this plant. I got this little clip-on macro lens for my phone. And you don't need that, but I just love getting that up-close and personal look at our little bug friends. Sometimes when you look, you won't find anything new. And that's okay. But you can boost your chances of finding cool critters. I set up a couple really easy traps in my yard. And with an old sheet of cardboard, you can make a cover board, a perfect place for dark-loving critters to hide. Make sure you lift stuff up so that whatever's underneath can move away from you. If you find an awesome snake or something, you don't want its only escape route to be in your direction. Same goes for lifting up rocks. You can find a bunch of cool stuff under there. But put it back when you're done. That's somebody's home you're messing with. And there's nothing there.

(Describer) Nothing under the cardboard.

Hey, guys, you think we could add some CGI bugs or something?

(funny voice) You like jazz?

(Describer) They add cartoon bees.

Here's a little pit trap I made just by burying a paper cup in the ground so that anything that walks by, well, you know, falls into my pit of despair-- I mean, scientific research station. Nothing in there right now. Don't have a yard? No problem. Lift up your flower pots, your doormat, whatever you can find. There could be critters under there. You don't even have to leave home to do it. There's a whole iNaturalist project for our uninvited house guests. And don't forget trees. I mean, sure, they don't move, but that makes them easy to take pictures of. Tree. Tree. There's another tree.

(Describer) He takes photos.

Oh, look, another tree. Another tree. Ooh, this tree's got a little viney friend. Hello, viney friend. Here's another tree. I think this tree might be invasive. Bad tree. You'll start to learn how to look out for other clues, too, like footprints or insect eggs-- those little galls on the bottom of leaves. You're going to be a nature detective before you know it. Ooh, here we got some fire ants, another invasive species. Very spicy. Do not touch. And this probably goes without saying, but just in case, if you don't know what it is, and even if you do, no touchy, okay? That's itchy.

(Describer) Poison ivy.

Just think what you could find if you did this once a week or every day. One iNaturalist user in Mexico tracked the species in his yard over a few years, and he IDed more than 500 different organisms right at home. This kind of citizen science can make a real difference. It's a massive data set, more than any scientist could get on their own. And it's at higher resolution than any satellite or tracking tag could give them. Thanks to all of our eyes working together, we're helping track threatened and endangered species so we know where they need to be protected. We're tracking invasive species so we know where they need to be controlled. We're seeing how wildlife is adapting to a changing climate. And best of all, it's just a good way to get better connected with where you live. Over 25 million wildlife observations have been uploaded to iNaturalist so far. And just last year, citizen scientists recorded 30,000 species, which led to more than 200 new scientific papers. They even led to some awesome discoveries. Even if you can't go to someplace that feels wild, well, you don't have to because nature is everywhere. It's all around you. You just have to go look for it. We've set up a special project on iNaturalist that you can join. Just go search It's Okay to be Smart Global Survey in the iNaturalist Projects tab. Join up, and all of your observations will be part of our community. Think you can beat me? Well, you better get started. Stay curious. Hey, guys, I'm filming this at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. And if you're watching this from the future, let me just say, I hope things have gotten better by then. But if you're watching this now, please stay safe if you go out and check out nature where you live. Pay attention to local stay-at-home orders, physical distancing, all that. Just stay safe. Nature will be there when this is all done. And if you've got younger kids you want to try this with, or if you are a younger kid, iNaturalist also has a cool app called Seek that's a little bit more like a game, has different features. It's fun in a whole different way. Finally, I want to say a huge thank-you to everyone who supports the show on Patreon. We could not make these episodes without your support. If you'd like to join our community, just check out the link down in the description. Get a bunch of great perks and you'll help us bring you more episodes like this and different from this. We'll see you next time.

(Describer) He's lying on the grass.

I'm gonna look for some bugs.

(Describer) Title: PBS.