A sample of the nearly 500 mosquito larvae photos submitted through GLOBE Observer during the Mosquito Habitat Photo Challenge. The image is a screenshot from the challenge wrap up video available at https://youtu.be/EHpxFoxgHEY
Between July 25 and August 25, the NESEC-led GLOBE Observer team held the Mosquito Habitat Photo Challenge, which asked volunteers to collect concurrent observations of mosquito habitats and land cover. The goal for holding the challenge was to generate data, specifically photos, to support newly funded work in artificial intelligence/machine learning. The challenge resulted in an increased rate of data collection and brought in new users, which should increase data volume going forward. 1,825 observations were submitted from 31 countries with the most observations coming from Thailand (62%), the United States (27%), and India (3%). These observations included more than 6,200 photographs, including 489 photographs of mosquito larvae, more than 1,300 water habitats and 4,500 photographs of land cover around potential mosquito habitats. 516 people submitted land cover or mosquito habitat data during the challenge period, and among these, nearly half contributed more than one observation. People who submitted mosquito data were more likely to contribute multiple observations. 1,895 new GLOBE Observer accounts were created during the challenge with peaks in activity occurring during major communication events on July 23 (NASA Reddit AMA and Instagram story) and August 20 (NASA Earth Instagram Reel and World Mosquito Day social media posts).