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ENVIRONMENT Kids take to Mount Ashland to become iNaturalists BioBlitz puts kids and cell phones together to discover nature Comment By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Follow @@MTwriterFreeman MailTribune.com By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Follow @@MTwriterFreeman Posted Jul. 9, 2016 at 12:01 AM By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Follow @@MTwriterFreeman Posted Jul. 9, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Social News ASHLAND — An iPod with wifi in hand, Vivian Mulkins stalks the slopes of Mount Ashland as a budding naturalist with an app just for that. Her eye catches a particular yellow flower that she photographs, uploads onto a Web page and and takes a stab at what the plant is called. "I'm making a guess that it's a yellow flower," says Vivian, 10, of Ashland. Later on, the cyberworld will tell her that it's sulfur buckwheat, Eriogonum umbellatum to a botanist, but a pretty pedestrian perennial to others. Discoveries such as this came with GPS coordinates when a group of young citizen scientists descended upon Mount Ashland to quite literally take a afternoon snapshot of the local flora and share it with the world. About a dozen fourth-graders took part in Jackson County's inaugural BioBlitz, which puts kids armed with cellphones into the outdoors to chronicle what they find, upload it to a free app and even get help identifying what the heck they just saw. Developed by the National Park Service two years ago, the BioBlitz concept for kids has popped up elsewhere in Oregon this year, but this is the first event of its kind in Jackson County, says spokeswoman Chamise Kramer of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. The national forest is joining with the federal Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service, as well as REI, to support the project. "These kids are actually the first citizen-scientists doing this work on Mount Ashland," says Kramer. There's an irony in seeing kids standing in a mountain meadow staring at their smartphones. In this case, it's not loathed but begrudgingly embraced. "There's no fighting it, so we might as well use it to investigate the natural world," Kramer says. But BioBlitzers at least operate with a few guidelines. "We have a no-selfie rule," Kramer says. Ten-year-old Hiram Towle grabbed the phone from his dad, the Mount Ashland Ski Area manager by the same name, and first photographed perhaps the least interesting thing on the slope. "I took pictures of manzanita," he says. "My dad told me to take it because no one else probably would." Later, Hiram and the other fourth-graders and their families would download their photos and guesses as to their identities to the inaturalist.org accounts. The species would be added to the species tallies at inaturalist, which has experts from around the world view the photos and identify the species, according to the site. Those who ask can get an email from inaturalist describing their find. Inaturalist won't have to send any emails for Tyla Garfas-Knowles to identify her first entry. "I took a picture of a grasshopper," Tyla says. "It's the first bug I've found." While these kids are carrying palm-sized computers millions of times more powerful than what NASA used to land a man on the moon, kids will be kids. As Tyla and Vivian work to get a buzzing bee in focus, a young tag-along boy runs down the slope and slides into the dirt, throwing up a dust plume toward this pair of Walker Elementary School pals. "Seriously?" Tyla says. "Little boys are so weird," Vivian adds. Reach Mail Tribune reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470 or [email protected] . Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MTwriterFreeman . By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Follow @@MTwriterFreeman MailTribune.com By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Follow @@MTwriterFreeman Posted Jul. 9, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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