Let's learn how to identify species by virtual monitoring!
This is a gaming tool for learning the identification of species, which is the essential problem in citizen monitoring. A photograph attached on an IC card is regarded as a real insect, and a touch of an IC card on a card reader is assumed as a capture of the insect; this virtual capture activity is expected to enhance the ability of people to identify species accurately and quickly. The archive of participants' activity, such as which card is touched when, is analyzed later so that we can understand how participants are trying to identify species, and use the result for the future planning of citizen monitoring activities.
At this moment, this tool offers games for the idenfication of bumblebees and butterflies to be useful for the citizen monitoring acitivity of Bombus terrestris, which focuses on the control of invasive alien species, and the butterfly monitoring activity in Tokyo, which focuses on the effect of urban environment and climate change on the distribution of species. However, in theory, this tool can be applied to the identification of any species including plants and animals by just changing the photographs attached on IC cards. This possibility should be studied in the future.