At the 2025 Wild Wonder Conference, I taught a class called "Charting Curiosity: Data Visualization Tools", where we played with ways to visualize data that help us notice patterns in nature and spark new questions. Here's an example from the class:

After the class, several participants expressed interest in doing a Dear Data–style project—but for nature journaling. I loved the idea and worked with some trusted nature journaling advisors to build a playful, reflective, community project to grow our “data muscle” together!

I’m now excited to invite all of you to join this experiment. The goal is simple: notice patterns in the natural world, share observations creatively, and have fun connecting with others in our community. This project is designed to be flexible, low-pressure, and enjoyable for everyone.

Dear Data was a year-long project by Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec. Living in different countries, they exchanged weekly hand-drawn postcards visualizing personal data from their daily lives. Here is an example from their book about “A week of laughter” where they tracked data about what and who made them laugh during that week.

Learn more about the project here: Dear Data Website 

Participants will receive a broad prompt at the start of each quarter, with three months to collect and visualize their data. There’s no expectation to track every instance or collect data daily — observe and record at a rhythm that works for you: hourly, weekly, or just once in a while. Join for a single quarter or stay through the year - participation is flexible by design.

Each quarter will have its own Padlet to keep the visualizations organized. Links and guidelines will be shared along with the quarterly prompt.

The “Sacrificial Pancake” is a fun, warm-up first prompt to help everyone get comfortable with the process, figure the logistics, and get their creative juices flowing.

For this phase, we’ll take inspiration from Akshay Mahajan’s November Nature Journaling theme—The Tummy Journal. Perfect for the holiday season:  you can track color, texture, smell, feelings, or nutrition of foods you are eating. I will share more details on November 19th, just before we start on November 20th.

To participate, subscribe to my newsletter: Subscribe Here.

I’ll share the quarterly prompts, inspiration, and tips through my newsletter in your email as we go. Keep in mind—this is meant to be playful, flexible, and low-pressure, and I’ll be learning and improvising alongside you.

Watch for future newsletters where I’ll share:

I envision this to be a 12 month project that will conclude in Dec 2026. You may participate only for select quarters or go all in. Your choice!

Charting Curiosity: Data Visualization Tools - My class from Wild Wonder Nature Journaling Conference (2025) on elements of data visualization, how to organize observations, choose the right visual formats for different types of data, develop a data collection strategy, and translate curiosity into investigable patterns.

Watch the class with a Wild Wonder Video Pass (available through April 30, 2026)

Books for Inspiration:

Community Examples: