Wild Things 2009: Conference Sessions
Saturday, February 7, 2009
University of Illinois at Chicago
Session: G4
Keys to Nature: Author-friendly, web-based tools for identification of regional plants and animals
General: Natural History of the Chicago Region Volunteers/Community Building/OutreachBil Alverson, Senior Conservation Ecologist/Botanist
ECCo, The Field Museum
The Keys to Nature Project provides modern, web-based tools ("keys") to identify plants, animals, and fungi growing in the Chicago Region. At each step of a key, users select one of two or three choices, which eventually leads to images and other information about a species or small group of species. At each step, photographs or illustrations make it easy to visualize the characteristics that distinguish one species, or set of species, from another. Our on-line forms encourage professional and amateur authors to create and illustrate their own keys. Our draft web pages (http://fm1.fieldmuseum.org/keystonature) provide several proof-of-concept keys, descriptions of our history and technology, and instructions for contributing authors.
Click on the session code (e.g. D1, C2, M3) to view the the title, topic, presenter and abstract for a particular session or keynote for the keynote's abstract. (See the detailed schedule for the conference overall.)
