On Tuesday 30 July 2019, the BIOTALENT project held its Final EU Conference titled:
"The BIOTALENT project: Innovative Education, the Best Investment to Increase Engagement in Science".
This final conference was a full day event prepared by project coordinator Isabella Van de Velde and hosted by the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) at Brussels.
It showcased the results and accomplishments from three enriching years of the ERASMUS+ BIOTALENT educational project, as well as enlightening participants about the benefits gained by its users and how its innovative way of educating can increase engagement in Natural Sciences. More specifically, the entire course is based on the inquiry-based learning (IBL) methodology with international students, teachers, educators and scientists as target audience. The course is of great value due to the international urgency to understand and mitigate the impacts of climate change on biodiversity.
Conference participants were science students, teachers, science communicators, nature guides and consultants of various institutions, all of which appreciated the opportunity to gain insight about the Biodiversity and Climate Change e-learning programme and the IBL approach.
The conference programme was coordinated by Catherina Voreadou (Natural History Museum Crete – NHM Crete) and Ana Casino (Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities - CETAF) and consisted of engaging presentations and an interactive session with the audience.
Thierry Backeljau (Head of Operational Directorate – RBINS) opened the conference and gave a warm welcome, followed by interesting and insightful presentations by:
José Miguel Sousa (EduFor), Catherina Voreadou (NHM Crete) who presented the Inquiry-based learning (IBL) approach and implemented it in the BIOTALENT Course), Gergely Babocsay (Hungarian Natural History Museum - HNHM) and Manolis Avramakis (NHM Crete)
Topics covered: the brief history of the project and why it was developed, the project objectives and how they were achieved and, the course evaluation by scientists and learners.
The presentation ended with an account of a fieldtrip “5 days on an island at the edge of Europe” to the Cretan countryside where students observed aromatic and medicinal plants, and reptiles.
In the afternoon session Tine Geunis (RBINS) and Carlos Rodrigues (EduFor) presented the architecture and programme development of the BIOTALENT e-learning platform and the challenges of building an IBL course such as creating original, scientifically accurate information sources, the aggregation of ideas through multi-institutional and international meetings and, finally how BIOTALENT shares its knowledge and experience so that others can build similar style education resources.
Next was a successful interactive session.
Participants worked in three groups answering questions that stimulated discussion on envisaging an ideal course and what it would include:
1) What would you like to learn about biodiversity and climate change?
2) Would you prefer online or face-to-face courses?
3) Use 5 keywords to describe the BIOTALENT course.
Participants gave a range of thoughtful suggestions, for instance, they would prefer a mix of both online (with support) and face-to-face courses because the former allows you to learn in your own time and the latter makes it easier to discuss work. There was a desire to gain knowledge about ancient climate change in terms of causes and consequences; what we can individually do to prevent global change; knowledge of other human caused environmental impacts (such as pollution and the destruction of habitat), and legislation and policy. Key words to describe the course included: creativity, added values, interactivity, awareness, inquiry-based learning.
Ana Casino (Executive Director of CETAF) gave the final presentation which highlighted how CETAF plays a crucial role in fostering such projects and how its status as a European wide consortium enables the dissemination of biodiversity initiatives to a large audience.
The conference ended with viewing BIOTALENT’s promotional video about the e-learning platform and its innovative inquiry-based e-learning course, enhancing students’ comprehension of biodiversity issues with regards to climate change and, providing them with knowledge and competences in biodiversity and its conservation.
Although this phase of the BIOTALENT project is completed, it is not a good bye because the e-learning platform and its resources will remain open access to all users. Collaborating with multiple stakeholders and sharing knowledge and resources on biodiversity conservation issues to a wider audience is one of the targets. The further aim is to integrate the e-learning platform into the DEST (Distributed European School of Taxonomy) and provide the possibility to create new courses not only in natural sciences but also in the wider sector of STEM by using the BIOTALENT course matrix.
The conference ended with viewing BIOTALENT’s promotional video about the e-learning platform and its innovative inquiry-based e-learning course, enhancing students’ comprehension of biodiversity issues with regards to climate change and, providing them with knowledge and competences in biodiversity and its conservation.
To see BIOTALENT's promotional video click below
