Students hit the coulees to gather plant, animal data

By Lethbridge Herald on September 26, 2025.

Alejandra Pulido-Guzman
Lethbridge Herald

First week of post-secondary school can be terrifying, but for one group of students at Lethbridge Polytechnic was an opportunity to contribute to a local biodiversity database. 

More than 70 first-year students in the Natural Resource Compliance program traded their classroom for the coulees during their first week of school earlier this month and contributed hundreds of plant and animal observations to a growing community database.

Amanda Fernandes, instructor in the Environmental Sciences department at Lethbridge Polytechnic said she wanted to start the semester with a fun activity, so she decided to take her students to the Helen Schuler Nature Centre. 

“I wanted to do something exciting, something fun, but at the same time impactful for their careers,” said Fernandes. 

She said the field trip was originally taken to learn about volunteering opportunities and employment opportunities within the Nature Centre, but since the nature trails are right there, she decided to and take them on a tour, to help them connect with some of the ecology concepts they will be learning. 

“I thought of a way to do that in a more fun way, more engaging way, and that’s where the iNaturalist app came in,” said Fernandes. 

The iNaturalist app, is a global citizen science tool that helps identify and track plants, animals and other organisms.

“In the app, you can upload your observations, they could be pictures or videos, and there are tools inside the app that can help you identify what these observations are,” said Fernandes. 

She said she wasn’t sure how the students were going to react to the app, or the fieldtrip itself and she was happily surprised when they were both very well received. 

One of the students taking part of the trip and data collection was Summerlin Paine, and she said that the activity opened her eyes to all the nature around and to connect with the centre as well. 

“I really enjoyed it and I know the people I worked with also really enjoyed it. I’m not from here, so getting to experience a whole bunch of new organisms and plant species we had never seen before and being able to use the iNaturalist app to identify them was great,” said Paine. 

In addition to gaining ecological knowledge, students were also introduced to conservation opportunities in the area and now Paine is getting involved in those efforts. 

“I’m actually getting involved in the nature centre on my own too. So, it’s safe to say the activity opened new doors for me and in different areas,” said Paine. 

In terms of what they did during the field trip, Fernandes said the students took over 300 pictures of more than 90 species of animals and plants. 

“It was a very positive experience and I see that even today when we’re doing other activities related to other topics, I can still see them using the app and being excited about it,” said Fernandes. 

She said she left their project accessible to the public within the app and those interested can can download the free iNaturalist app and search the project BIO1172 Ecology Lab – Helen Schuler Fall 2025 to see the students’ photographs and species identifications.