Thank you for your interest in the City Nature Challenge – where hundreds of cities from all over the globe get people outside observing as much urban nature as they can! It’s a city-wide, four-day bioblitz and one of the biggest participatory science events of the year. Everyone can join us in collecting biodiversity data for our city. The 2026 Challenge will be from April 24 – April 27, 2026. This site serves as a workspace for our NYC CNC friends and partners.
We will start planning in Fall 2025. To get on our mailing list, contact Dr. Kelly O’Donnell at kelly.odonnell@mhc.cuny.edu. There are links below for signing up as a partner or volunteer.
We will use our CNC iNaturalist project page as our main way to communicate about the event to the public. This will have all information about the NYC arm of the CNC, including events lists, public trainings before the CNC, and other fun updates. Visit the page here: City Nature Challenge 2026: New York City.
General information about the whole CNC and some great educator resources can be found on the main CNC website. You can see all of NYC’s CNC results in this iNaturalist umbrella project. Follow #citynaturechallenge on social media to see posts from many of our participating cities!
If you would like to see last year’s results for NYC, visit: City Nature Challenge 2025: New York City.
If you have 12 minutes, below is a recording of a presentation about the main goals of the CNC and some 2019 results. Please note that since 2020, the cities work collaboratively towards a global goal, rather than having one city be crowned the “winner” of the challenge.
If you are interested in the annual Macaulay Honors College BioBlitz, visit this page: About Our BioBlitz
How to Participate in the City Nature Challenge in NYC
Are you a Macaulay student? You can volunteer to become an iNaturalist pro for our public events and earn community service credit. Visit this page for more info and to volunteer – Information for Volunteers
Are you a potential partner organization? We would love to hear from you to help you organize your own City Nature Challenge events and to partner you with some of our trained MHC students. Visit this page for more info and to register your interest – Information for Partner Organizations
Are you interested in participating on your own? Sign up for iNaturalist now and practice making observations! Once you have an iNaturalist account, you can join the 2026 CNC NYC iNaturalist project and look for updates in the News section. Free public events will be posted there as they are planned.
