Taking Nat Geo Outside the Office

I am happy to report that after months of work we have officially launched our BETA version of the Great Nature Project website! There are still a few bugs we are working on but you can now visit the site at www.greatnatureproject.org. There you'll find a live photo feed that displays all the latest and greatest photos that have been submitted through Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, ProjectNoah, iNaturalist, and National Geographic's Yourshot/Kids Myshot program. We currently have around 6,000 photos, so only 994,000 to go until we reach our goal!


2013 Boy Scout Jamboree

I really encourage everyone to take a look around the site and explore some of the pictures that have been submitted from around the world. You'll find several categories of supplemental material, including everything from biodiversity educational links to helpful photography tips. Though I've been involved in many exciting things while interning at National Geographic, the Great Nature Project still remains my biggest focus. I am proud to see how far it's come and to say that I've had a part in something that is going to reach so many people.

What many people don't know about the project is that it is something we hope to continue to grow and develop for many years. The ultimate goal is to not only use the project as a global nature photo-sharing platform, but to also develop it into an international citizen science program. We are hoping to eventually gather more accurate geo-locations and information for each photo that is submitted. With that information we can work with scientific platforms such as ProjectNoah, Encyclopedia of Life, and iNaturalist to share every-day people's photos with scientists that are researching the biodiversity of a particular area or species. We are already discussing the details of a future app that can be used to share this information more conveniently.

2013 Boy Scout Jamboree

I've been doing a lot of jumping around the past two weeks, both literally and figuratively! I just got back from a very wild adventure in West Virginia at the 2013 Boy Scout Jamboree. There we excitingly spread the GNP mission to 50,000 boy scouts and visiting families. The Jamboree was located at a 10,600-acre piece of land nestled in the mountains of West Virginia. As the West Virginians would say, it was "almost heaven." The views were spectacular and the activities were endless. However, the horse flies were infesting our tents and the heat was dry but still exhausting. Our tent was located in the technology quest arena at the very top of the summit. We spent our first day camped out on the side of the mountain road waiting five hours for a bus to come get us. It appears that 50,000 boy scouts entering the summit at one location can lead to quite a huge traffic jam. From that point on we ditched the bus system and decided to hike to our tent each day.

Sunshine on the West Virginia mountains

While at the Jamboree we promoted four popular subjects produced by the Nat Geo Education Department. Besides the Great Nature Project, we had booths for our Alien Deep program (which I'll talk more about in the next blog), our Kids magazine, and a new Nat Geo water conservation initiative called Change the Course.  We were assigned a group of Jamboree volunteers to help many each of the booths while we ran from group to group answering questions. I was amazing by how attentive the crowds were, but it was the volunteers who truly inspired me. Men and women, old and young - these people embraced the spirit of National Geographic whole-heartedly! Each volunteer we worked with felt so honored to be representing National Geographic and made a point of thanking us for coming every chance they got.

The trip was exhausting, the boy scouts were smelly, and the horse flies made me appreciate mosquitos in a way I never thought I would; but to my surprise I still had the most amazing time. Not because everything went smoothly, not even because I got to travel somewhere new and exciting. I enjoyed this trip purely because of the coworkers that traveled and experienced all of this with me. All of the frustrating moments and strange situations lead to hilarious stories shared over beers each evening. I got to know my coworkers on a level that I never would have experienced in the office.

Friends!

I thought I knew how lucky I was to be a part of National Geographic. I thought it couldn't get any better than it already was. But this trip has made me realize one very important thing: I'm lucky to be interning with a company that is internationally respected and I'm lucky to be doing work that I love, but I am truly blessed to be working with people that I can now call my good friends.

Interesting links from this blog!

The Great Nature Project

www.greatnatureproject.org

 

Change the Course

http://changethecourse.us

 

Encyclopedia of Life

http://eol.org