Nature Competitions
Turning curiosity, creativity and participation into a connection with nature.
Connecting People with Nature
Our Reach Across India
Secure Nature Society’s Annual Nature Competitions create opportunities for people to learn about nature, explore their creativity and engage with environmental issues in an enjoyable and accessible way. What began as individual competitions has grown into a broader platform for nature learning and participation, bringing together people from different places and with different interests around a common curiosity about the natural world. Through these activities, we try to make nature something people actively observe, question and experience rather than something that exists only in textbooks, documentaries or distant protected areas.
The competitions also give people different ways to participate according to their own interests and abilities. Someone who enjoys photography can observe wildlife closely and tell a story through an image. Someone interested in art can explore nature, biodiversity or environmental issues through drawing. A quiz can encourage participants to look for answers, discover unfamiliar species and learn about the relationships between organisms and their habitats. Hands-on activities such as birdhouse making take this a step further by turning an idea about conservation into something participants can create and put into practice.
Each year, we organise different competition formats from wildlife photography and nature-themed drawing to online quizzes and practical activities. Some are designed around observation, some around knowledge and critical thinking, and others around creativity or direct participation. The formats may change, and the people taking part may come from different parts of India, but the purpose remains consistent: to encourage people to look more closely at the natural world, ask questions, learn beyond what they already know, think critically about environmental issues and develop a deeper connection with nature.
For us, participation itself is an important part of the process. A competition provides a reason to stop, observe, create, research or think about something that might otherwise go unnoticed. That small moment of engagement can be the beginning of a much stronger interest in nature. By creating these opportunities repeatedly and in different formats, we hope to make curiosity about nature more accessible and encourage people to carry that curiosity beyond the competition itself.
More Than a Competition
For us, these competitions are not simply about scores, rankings or prizes.
A photograph can make someone notice wildlife differently.
A drawing can turn an environmental issue into a story.
A question can lead someone to research a species they have never heard of.
And building a birdhouse can turn concern for birds into something tangible.
That is the kind of participation we want to encourage where curiosity becomes learning, and learning becomes care.
This philosophy comes through particularly strongly in Quiz with a Twist, where the programme was designed around observation, curiosity and thinking like a naturalist rather than simply memorising facts.
Timeline of Project
Wildlife Photography Competition
2 editions
A photography competition inviting participants to document wildlife, ecosystems and the relationship between people and nature.
The 2025 Love of Mother edition focused on the theme of maternal bonds in wildlife and received hundreds of entries from across India.
The 2026 edition expanded the programme around “Eye of Nature” and “Co-existence”, receiving entries from 22 states across India and 6 countries. The judging emphasised photographic quality alongside authenticity, ecological significance, natural behaviour, storytelling and conservation relevance.
Quiz with a Twist
3 editions
Quiz with a Twist is Secure Nature Society’s online nature quiz programme, created to make learning about wildlife, biodiversity and the natural world more engaging, thoughtful and accessible. Rather than treating a nature quiz as a test of how many facts someone can memorise, the programme encourages participants to observe carefully, connect different pieces of information and think beyond the obvious answer.
The questions are designed to spark curiosity and encourage participants to look more closely at the natural world. Some questions test knowledge, while others require observation, reasoning or an understanding of how animals, plants, habitats and ecosystems are connected. This approach allows the quiz to become more than a competition — it becomes an opportunity to discover something unfamiliar and follow that curiosity further.
The programme also reflects an important part of our approach to environmental education: learning does not always have to begin in a classroom. A question about an unfamiliar species can lead someone to research it. A surprising answer can challenge an assumption. A question about animal behaviour or an ecosystem can encourage participants to look at nature differently in their own surroundings.
The first edition of Quiz with a Twist introduced this approach, and the programme continued to evolve with each edition. By 2026, it had reached its third edition, bringing together participants from different parts of India through an accessible online format.
While there is a competitive element, the larger purpose remains the same: to encourage curiosity, observation and independent learning, and to help people develop a deeper interest in the natural world.
Three editions. Hundreds of participants. One simple idea — make people curious enough to keep learning.
Instagram Quiz
2 editions
The Instagram Quiz Marathon is Secure Nature Society’s month-long nature quiz series, organised every March to celebrate World Wildlife Day and bring wildlife learning into people’s everyday social media experience.
Throughout the month, we publish five separate quiz rounds, with each round featuring a series of 10–15 questions covering wildlife, birds, biodiversity, ecosystems, conservation and interesting aspects of the natural world. Instead of being a single quiz that participants complete once, the Marathon gives people multiple opportunities to test their knowledge, discover something new and return for the next round.
The format is deliberately simple and accessible: participants can take part directly through Instagram, learn as they go, and share the experience with friends and fellow nature enthusiasts. The response has been encouraging, with hundreds of people participating across the different rounds and many returning throughout the month to take on the next challenge.
More than a competition, the Quiz Marathon is a way of using a platform that people already engage with every day to create small moments of curiosity, observation and learning about wildlife. Each question is an invitation to pause, think and perhaps look a little deeper into the natural world.
Because Instagram provides limited access to historical participation data, we are unable to publish a complete consolidated record of every participant across all rounds. However, the continued participation and response to the series have made the Instagram Quiz Marathon one of our popular recurring World Wildlife Day activities.
Five quiz rounds. One month. Hundreds of participants — and countless opportunities to learn something new about wildlife.
Nature's Canvas
2 editions
Nature Canvas is Secure Nature Society’s nature-themed drawing competition, created to encourage people to explore their relationship with nature through art and creative expression.
Each edition gives participants a different theme through which they can interpret and communicate their understanding of the natural world. The themes are intentionally broad enough to allow different perspectives — from the beauty and diversity of nature to environmental challenges and the relationship between people and the ecosystems around them.
The first edition focused on themes connected to ideas such as co-existence and life with nature, encouraging participants to think about how people and the natural world share the same spaces and depend on one another. The second edition, Nature Canvas 2.0, introduced Warli art as a creative theme, bringing together environmental awareness, traditional Indian art and storytelling. Participants used the distinctive visual language of Warli art to portray subjects connected with nature, biodiversity, communities, seasons, trees, rivers, farming and our relationship with the environment.
Through the competition, we aim to make environmental conversations more accessible by giving participants a creative way to express what nature means to them. A drawing can communicate an idea, question an existing relationship or simply make someone look at the natural world from a different perspective.
The themes may change with every edition, but the purpose remains consistent: to use creativity as a way to encourage observation, reflection and a deeper connection with nature.
Birdhouse Making Competition
1 edition
The Birdhouse Making Competition is a hands-on conservation activity that encourages participants to turn their concern for urban birds into something practical.
As part of our online nature competitions, participants were challenged to design and make birdhouses that could provide safe and suitable nesting spaces for sparrows and other small urban birds. The competition was not simply about creating the most beautiful or creative structure — participants also had to think about whether their birdhouse was practical, appropriately designed and genuinely useful for birds.
This meant considering details such as the size and design of the entrance, the structure and materials used, protection from weather and the way the birdhouse could be placed in a suitable location. The idea was to move beyond simply talking about declining bird populations and encourage participants to think about what they could actually do to help birds living around them.
The response brought in some creative and thoughtful entries, showing that conservation can take many forms. For some participants, the competition became an opportunity to build something with their own hands; for others, it was a chance to learn more about the needs of sparrows and the challenges faced by birds in increasingly urban environments.
Most importantly, the activity was designed to continue beyond the competition itself. A well-made birdhouse should not remain a competition entry — it can be installed and made available to birds, turning a creative exercise into a small but tangible conservation action.
The goal w
A Programme That Keeps Growing
Our competitions continue to evolve from wildlife photography and drawing to quizzes, observation-based challenges and hands-on conservation activities. The formats may change, and each edition may invite participants to see nature from a different perspective, but the purpose remains the same.
To spark curiosity.
To encourage learning.
To make people stop, look closer and engage with the natural world.
Because sometimes, conservation begins with something as simple as becoming curious about nature.