Purpose & History
NatureAtlas is a Web-based biodiversity geographic information system for desktops, laptops, smartphones & tablets. It was launched in 2008 for instructors & students in field-oriented taxonomy courses. It's been expanded to give anyone (amateur or professional) the tools to map observations & photos of organisms, generate interactive biotic inventory atlases, generate presentation-quality distribution maps, manage BioBlitz inventories, & explore biodiversity. Furthermore, NatureAtlas is unique in its educational mission to serve as a venue for the mentoring & training of computer science & biology students in application development & testing in the field of biodiversity informatics. Read more in the user manual
Suggested Citation(s) & Literature
Hardy CR, NW Hardy. 2018. Adapting traditional field activities in natural history education to an emerging paradigm in biodiversity informatics. American Biology Teacher 80: 501-519.
Hardy NW, CR Hardy. 2016. NatureAtlas.org: exposing undergraduate computer science students to opportunities and applications in biodiversity informatics. 2016 World Congress on Engineering 1: 209-211 (ISBN: 978-988-19253-0-5).
Development Team
Art: Christopher Hardy
Data: John Ambler, Julie Ambler, Kevin Faccenda, Christopher Hardy, Nathan Hartley
Educational Purposing: Christopher Hardy, Nazli Hardy
Founders: Christopher Hardy, Nazli Hardy
Programming & Site Design: Cameron Andrews (2016-17), Andrew Bonsall (2013-14), Christopher Hardy (2007-current), Nazli Hardy (2007-current), Daniel Kral (2017), Kevin Faccenda (2019)
Compatibility
NatureAtlas V2.0 (September 15, 2017) works with all recent browsers, but Google Chrome is recommended. Everyone knows that Microsoft browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer, Edge) should be avoided - since they do not follow many of HTML5’s conventions. Older versions of Apple’s Safari also do not support some of NatureAtlas’s functions. Users of Windows XP may also experience issues with map control due to the fact that XP is a deprecated operating system which is not supported by Google Maps API employed here or the various web browsers.