Great Southern Bioblitz 2022

Great Southern Bioblitz 2022 - Increasing biodiversity awareness through Citizen Science

The 'Great Southern BioBlitz', or 'GSB' for short, was established in 2020 by the not-for-profit team at Ferox australis, as an international event of intense biological surveying in an attempt to record all the living species within designated areas across the Southern Hemisphere during Spring. 

​Engaging students with the GSB event can link to several areas in the Australian Curriculum for Science, we have provided some examples of links to the science curriculum for year 5 students in our post. The purpose of this event is to highlight both the immense biodiversity spread across the Southern Hemisphere in the flourishing springtime, as well as to engage the public in science and nature learning using the open citizen science platform, iNaturalist (ACSIS066). Engaging in the event provides students with an introduction to the platform, with an opportunity to discover their local biodiversity, and stimulate discussions about their investigations (ACSIS231) on:

• What sorts of plants and animals did students find?
• What could impact on the species living in the area? (ACSSU043, ACSSU094)
• How many species did students estimate to have found?
• What could we do next with this data?
• What could we expect to find in different environments with different land use using iNaturalist data to compare? (ACSHE061, ACSHE043)
• Would repeating this survey at a different time be useful? What might we discover?
• How can this information be used to solve problems and inform personal and community decisions? (ACSHE083)

By the end of October, the natural world is on full throttle. Flowers are blooming, insects are emerging, birds are singing, and reptiles are coming out of their winter hibernation. It makes sense for the Southern Hemisphere to observe life at this time of year!

The #GSB22 will be held from the 28th of October until the 31st of October, incorporating different communities, areas and regions across the Southern Hemisphere. If you use the GSB with your students we would love to hear about it, please share with us via email or on social media using the #GSB2022.