WeDigBio 2025 – Community Science Event

Details:

Thousands of people worldwide are working together this October in an annual event to digitize biodiversity collections. This event is known as WeDigBio, which stands for Worldwide Engagement for Digitizing Biocollections. 

WeDigBio is a virtual science festival, global data campaign, and local outreach opportunity. All around the globe, community scientists (people just like you!) will be transferring data from physical specimens onto highly accessible, digital data platforms. By digitizing our herbarium vouchers, we transform our collection into a digital resource available to anyone with an internet connection.

Participate with us and our global community to learn about the Gardens Herbarium and about the process of digitization.  Sign up to attend the Garden’s WeDigBio 2025 event below. To learn more about digitization, we invite you to read these articles:

Dates and times:

October 11, 2025 | 9 AM to 12 PM or 1-3 PM

This year, we are proud to partner with Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and the UCSB Cheadle Center to bring WeDigBio to our Santa Barbara Community. See what our partners are doing below.

UCSB Cheadle Center – October 9, 2025

• Join us at UCSB’s Cheadle Center to help digitize our preserved plant collection! We will work directly in our online biodiversity database to digitize plant specimens from the UCSB Herbarium. Participants will gain firsthand experience digitizing specimens and providing raw data which will be shared globally with researchers and citizen scientists! 
• Event location: The Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration on the campus of UC Santa Barbara.

Register here.

Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History – October 10, 2025

• The Museum’s Dibblee Geology Center will host two community science sessions in the Earth Science Collection. Community members will help curatorial staff handle and digitally photograph fossil specimens and archive the photograph files.  
• Event location: Dibblee Geology Center, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History 

Register here.

If you’re interested in attending our WeDigBio community science event at the Garden on October 11 please fill out the following form to request your desired date and time.