McLaren Park Bioblitz 2016

Join us on April 16, National Citizen Science Day, for an amazing bioblitz at McLaren Park in San Francisco!

In 2013, we had a crazy idea—gather Nature Nerds, McLaren park neighbors, scientists, and amateur naturalists all armed with the iNaturalist app and work together to find and identify as many different species as possible within McLaren Park. The first grassroots bioblitz was born!

A Bioblitz is an intensive one-day study of biodiversity in a specific location, bringing scientists and volunteer citizen-scientists together. Together, we’ll look for snails, birds, mammals, frogs, butterflies, other insects, spiders, trees, worms, flowers, and everything else we can find!

Bring your smartphone or a camera, your curiosity, and tons of enthusiasm. We’ll rally some experts and folks who know the area. Together we’ll make some science!

People of all ages and skill levels are welcome. Bring your smart phone for sure. Bonus: camera, binoculars, and magnifying glasses. We’ll enter observations in iNaturalist and join together at the end to find out how many observations we made and how many species we found. Past blitzes in Oakland, San Francisco, and San Mateo have averaged 1000 observations and 200+ species each. Hooray!

The fun starts at 10 AM Saturday at the June Jordan School for Equity. 325 La Grande Ave, San Francisco, CA 94112 is the address, but the entrance to June Jordan is actually on Brazil St. around the corner from the school's main entrance.

We will blitz until 1 pm and then meet back up at the school to go over our finds! You will enter the school through the blue gates. Bring snacks and water. We will have coffee in the morning and post blitz grub at the wrap.

Getting there:

By Public Transit: June Jordan School is a short 12-minute bus ride from the Balboa Park BART Station. Leave the station via the north (Ocean Ave) exit, walk to the end of the pedestrian bridge and wait for the 29 MUNI bus. (Not the 49, or you'll wind up at the Hyde Street Pier!).

The 29 runs every 10-15 minutes on Saturday. Ride down to the end of Ocean at Mission, then up Persia Ave. The bus will turn left on La Grande Ave just before entering McLaren Park (due to street construction). Get off at the temporary bus stop right in front of June Jordan School for Equity (Google Streetview). Turn left and walk to Brazil Street, then go up the hill, behind the main building, and through the blue gates on the right to JJSE (if you walk into the park, you've gone too far!).

By bicycle: Brazil is the preferred bike route up the hill, Persia has much more traffic and Russia is steeper. There are bike racks near front of June Jordan on Brazil.

By car: Plenty of parking along both sides of Brazil by the June Jordan entrance, and near the school on La Grande Ave. We will try and have the school parking lot open on Brazil. פחות ↑