A Laboratory of Possibilities project
Time for a break—for your health and everyone else’s
Everyone outside!
Did you know that spending just a few seconds in contact with nature is enough to feel its power to soothe? Nature has a direct, beneficial effect on our mental and physical health by helping us regain or maintain our equilibrium.
That’s why Montréal Space for Life is urging you to take part in the Biodiversity Challenge. It’s easy and a lot of fun. So what do you have to do? When you go out for a walk in the woods, in your back alley or even in your yard, take the time to observe nature and shoot a few pictures of the plants and animals around you. Then you can share your finds with other members of the Biodiversity Challenge.
The Biodiversity Challenge—an activity with all kinds of benefits
See what you’ll accomplish by taking part in the Biodiversity Challenge:
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Connecting with nature
If you’ve experienced it, you know: nature does you good. Contact with nature helps us manage our stress levels better, or reduce them, besides having a positive impact on our mental health.
Open your eyes, take a close look at flowers or move a rock. Wherever you turn, you’ll notice that there’s life everywhere. If you take the time to observe the biodiversity around you, you’ll benefit from its anxiety-reducing power.
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Helping to protect biodiversity
Once you’ve shared them, your observations become de facto contributions to science. How does that work? The iNaturalist platform brings together a community of nature lovers, including scientists who use the collected data. So you can turn your outdoor health break into a participatory science contribution.
Observations recorded as part of the Biodiversity Challenge get added to the open data collected that are useful to scientific research projects, conservation agencies and other organizations dedicated to the protection of biodiversity for research and education purposes.
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Joining a community of naturalists
Through the Biodiversity Challenge, you’ll be in contact with people from all walks of life—specialists, professors, researchers or just nature lovers—who can help you identify whatever treasures you’ve observed outdoors. The Biodiversity Challenge brings you into contact with a whole network of naturalists, both neophytes and hardened veterans!