Goals & Impact

Why City Nature Challenge Matters

City Nature Challenge (CNC) is a global community science effort that brings people together to document biodiversity in cities. By observing and sharing what lives around us, participants help build open data that supports research, education, and conservation—both locally and worldwide.

Each participating region contributes to a shared global effort while also setting local goals that reflect its own landscape, communities, and priorities.

Global City Nature Challenge Goals

City Nature Challenge is a worldwide initiative coordinated by the California Academy of Sciences and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

At the global level, City Nature Challenge aims to:

Connect people to nature where they live

Build community through collective action for local nature

Make and share nature observations to help fight biodiversity loss

Grow and support nature documentation globally

Have fun doing science while collaborating with people around the world

These global goals guide City Nature Challenge each year and are shared by participating cities across the world.

Learn more about the global City Nature Challenge and its goals at: citynaturechallenge.org

San Antonio Metro Area Goals

In the San Antonio Metro Area, the City Nature Challenge builds on the global effort by focusing on expanding local participation, learning, and biodiversity documentation across our 12-county region. By encouraging people to observe and identify nature where they live, work, and learn, CNC helps build a shared record of local biodiversity that supports science, conservation, and community awareness.

Participation & Access

Welcome participants of all ages and experience levels

Support participation by individuals, schools, campuses, and community groups

Reduce barriers to getting started with iNaturalist

Encourage participation across neighborhoods, parks, campuses, and natural areas

Biodiversity Documentation

Highlight the diversity of life across urban and surrounding landscapes

Improve identification quality through community review and collaboration

Increase observations of plants, animals, fungi, and other wild organisms

Education & Community Science

Build skills in observing, identifying, and documenting nature

Support educators, students, and community science volunteers

Encourage learning through hands-on discovery and shared participation

Long-Term Value

Create biodiversity data that can be revisited and used beyond the event

Support local understanding of biodiversity over time

Strengthen connections between people, place, and nature

How Participation Makes an Impact

Every observation shared during City Nature Challenge helps build a clearer picture of life in and around the San Antonio Metro Area.

Whether you contribute one observation or many, your participation:

Adds to a global, open-access biodiversity dataset

Helps improve the quality of species information through community identification

Supports scientific research and education

Highlights the value of urban nature in our region

Looking Ahead

City Nature Challenge is one moment within a larger, ongoing effort to understand and care for urban biodiversity. Each year builds on the last—adding new observations, new participants, and deeper insight into the natural world that surrounds us.

Thank you for being part of City Nature Challenge and helping document the biodiversity of the San Antonio Metro Area.