Oregon NatureMapping is a wildlife data collection activity in which you observe wildlife and plant life, gather environmental information in the field, and record your observations on a standard form. This data is contributed to the scientific community, allowing your students to become citizen scientists!

Sand lily Leucocrinum montanum Photo Credit: Mark Goddard

connects you with the natural world by giving you real-world, outdoor experiences; helps you learn more about the environment through access to "hands-on" field observation experiences and easy-to-use materials; gives you useful and practical skills like map reading and species identification; enables you to create and maintain your own environmental database; and sharpens your observation and identification skills, which will be a valuable asset to organized inventory and monitoring efforts, while becoming a citizen scientist.

Although the focus of this unit is to help resource managers inventory and monitor alien plant species at the John Day Fossil Beds National National Monument, you can participate in NatureMapping practically anywhere. You can participate with your own students, or organize a group of observers from your community.

The NatureMapping activities provide step-by-step instructions on how to participate. It includes the forms you’ll need for recording your field observations. You can maintain a database of your observations by using the unit’s simple data entry/data management software, custom designed for Aliens In Your Neighborhood and the Oregon NatureMapping project.

Just follow these links in the order they are listed to get started!

Where Am I?       Data Collection       Mapping       Appendix

Last updated 10/26/03