Everyone Counts!
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have increasingly relied on technology and screens to learn, work, and connect with loved ones. Beyond these devices, right outside our doors and windows, awaits another opportunity to learn, experience wonder, heal, and recenter.
“We Americans are reluctant to learn a foreign language of our own species, let alone another species. But imagine the possibilities. Imagine the access we would have to different perspectives, the things we might see through other eyes, the wisdom that surrounds us. We don’t have to figure out everything by ourselves: there are intelligences other than our own, teachers all around us.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants.
What is Everyone Counts!?
Everyone Counts! is a class, community-building activity, and community science project. Participants engage in nature-observation skills, mindfulness, and concepts of biodiversity science through multiple ways of learning. Activities emphasize skills that grow a place-based, firsthand awareness of nature. During the course, participants work up to completing a community science biodiversity survey. After the survey is completed, they take a deeper dive to discover even more about their survey site and themselves! The course ends with an online roundtable discussion where course participants and visiting experts share their experiences.
Visit #everyonecountsforbiodiversity on Instagram for the latest finds and photos! Visit the Everyone Counts! Project on iNaturalist to add or view observations!
Read the full course description
Let’s get started!
Register by clicking on the button below. By registering we can gather important information about how many people use this course and how and where the course is being used which helps us improve. Registration is free and you will receive an email with a link to all of the course content. We will not share your information or add you to any mailing lists. Thank you!
You can help us keep this course free and open to all! Everyone Counts! is a labor of love. Your support helps us fund the considerable planning, administration, technology work, and materials that go into creating and running Everyone Counts!
Number of species recorded on Vashon so far! Starting count (before the course started): 2054
Thank you to our partners and supporters!
Heidi Grimsley, John L Scott