Community Science Weekend – April 24 & 25

Birmingham Zoo is excited to announce its first-ever Community Science Weekend, a fun-filled, two-day event celebrating citizen science and outdoor discovery! Taking place during the City Nature Challenge, a four-day global bioblitz, guests will help collect valuable data used by scientists worldwide. Observations made at the Birmingham Zoo and across the Birmingham Metro Area will support research helping scientists understand the variety of plants and animals living in our local area.

The weekend features interactive educational booths from both Birmingham Zoo educators and local organizations, hands-on discovery activities, in-depth presentations from Animal Care Professionals, and much more. Guests of all ages are encouraged to learn, explore, and become community scientists!

Community Science Weekend Schedule

iNaturalist Trainings – 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the top of the hour, various Zoo locations – both days

Activity Booths – 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. – Children’s Zoo – both days

Friday, April 24

10:30 a.m. – Birding 101 – Children’s Zoo Gate

11:15 a.m.  – Animal Ambassadors – Gigi’s Porch

11:30 a.m. – Birmingham Zoo Story Hour – Henley Lawn

Noon – Mushroom Foray with Alabama Mushroom Society – Alabama Wilds Entrance

1:15 p.m. – Zookeeper Chat – American Black Bear Habitat

1:30 p.m. – Mushroom Foray – Alabama Wilds Entrance

2:15 p.m. -= Animal Ambassadors – Gigi’s Porch

Saturday, April 25

8:00 a.m.  – Guided Birding Walk with Greg Harbor of Alabama Audubon – Children’s Zoo Gate (2 hours) Limited to 20 people – Link to sign up – Community Science Weekend: Guided Birding Walk

10:00 a.m. – We Dig Dinos! – Alabama Museum of Natural History – Cougar Classroom

11:00 a.m. – Passion into Conservation Action (PiCA) Talk – Learning Center

11:15 a.m. – Animal Ambassadors – Gigi’s Porch

Noon – Mushroom Foray – Children’s Zoo Gate

1:15 a.m. – Zookeeper Chat at Cougar Habitat

1:30 p.m. – Mushroom Foray – Children’s Zoo Gate

2:15 p.m. – Animal Ambassadors – Gigi’s Porch

What is the City Nature Challenge?

“Started in 2016 as a competition between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the City Nature Challenge (CNC) has grown into an international event, motivating people around the world to find and document wildlife in their own cities. Run by the Community Science teams at the California Academy of Sciences and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM), the CNC is an annual four-day global bioblitz at the end of April, where cities collaborate to see what can be accomplished when we all work toward a common goal.” – City Nature Challenge

For the first time ever, the Birmingham Zoo is hosting the City Nature Challenge for the Birmingham Metro Area. This means that all iNaturalist observations recorded from April 24th – 27th, 2026 in and around Birmingham will be included in this event. Any observations that you make at your Birmingham Zoo will also be included and contribute not only towards our city’s ranking in this competition, but also to scientific research in our local area.

Why is the City Nature Challenge important?

The City Nature Challenge helps inform the public about iNaturalist, an easy-to-use app helping you identify the plants and animals around you while generating data for science and conservation. Not only does it help you learn more about your environment, but by recording and sharing your observations, you’ll create research-quality data for scientists working to better understand and protect nature.

Taking part in the CNC is easy! Simply find any wildlife, take a picture, and share it through the iNaturalist app.

Resources

To learn more about iNaturalist, go to www.inaturalist.org.
To download iNaturalist on your mobile device, go to:
Apple Store: iNaturalist
Google Play Store: iNaturalist

To learn more about the City Nature Challenge, go to www.citynaturechallenge.org.

To join the Birmingham Zoo’s City Nature Challenge 2026 iNaturalist project, please click here.

If you are interested in helping identify iNaturalist observations made, an identification effort will occur between April 28th and May 10th, 2026 on iNaturalist.

Haven’t used iNaturalist before? Still have questions? Your Birmingham Zoo educators and staff will be running iNaturalist trainings throughout the weekend so you can feel comfortable and confident to explore wildlife by yourself and become your own community scientist.