Assessing conserving and protecting European biodiversity : A citizen science project Erasmus Project

Project Title

Assessing conserving and protecting European biodiversity : A citizen science project

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Research and innovation; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Natural sciences

Project Summary

The project has been based on participatory science to study biodiversity in our cities. It has linked biology, mathematics (statistics), geography (urban development) and history (history of natural sciences).

Four highschools have taken part in the project, one in France, Italy, Lithuania and Poland and haved worked closely with local science museums.

For instance in France we had a partnership with our Museum of Natural Sciences and together with our partner our students have studied the wild flora (urban and wild plants) of their neighbourhood to learn more about nature in urban areas.
 Their results and findings have been sent to the museum for further use by professional scientists.
They have also studied in class the history of botanical research and how citizen science helped create strong bonds between European scientists and resulted in successful scientific European partnerships beyond state borders.

The project has been realised in English though our Italian partners will sometimes contact our students in their own language and in French.

A class of each highschooll took part in the mobilities, 5 to 6 students from each country took part to each meeting in each partners’ country. In the French highschool a class of “secondes” (freshmen) who have chosen MPS (Scientific Methods and Practices) as an minor have been the focus of the project. But the language teachers have also included the other classes in the different tasks with each partner school. At the end of the project, students with a major in dancing took part in the conference, trained by their dance teacher.

To get to know more about citizen science students have studied :

How to get to know more about biodiversity through visits of the Museums of Natural History, interviews of scientists, research on the subject, film projections, and practical work in class;

Why and how to measure biodiversity by visiting museums, interviews of scientists and film projections .

Urban vegetal biodiversity and citizen science through field work with MNHN.

How to work in small groups :

– preparing field work

– learning about botanical macro-scale photography

– selecting fields/places of exploration

– observing and identifying plants

Traveling through plant history through virtual or actual visit of the historical greenhouses of the “Jardin des Plantes” in Paris

Naturalist expeditions and the constitution of a European scientific heritage.

Biodiversity, feeding human beings and sustainable development

A blog was created to allow all partners to publish their findings and work on common virtual projects.

As a final project we have staged a danced conference to report on our students’ findings that would link science and the Arts. All partners have provided the content of the conference (and speakers) while our dancers have performed the dancing part.

Comparing their findings with their European counterparts and working together towards a common end made students aware of the role they can play in the development of scientific research (especially for women who are still underrepresented in this field, the majority of our French students being females), the protection of flora and its role in urban areas as European citizens. It has shown them how each private citizen of Europe has an essential role to play for the future of science and the general European well-being.

Impact : students and Partners have acquired precise and adequate scientific methodology together with related language skills specific to their fields. Their results help scientists with their research, it will also be a great asset and experience for our students’ future professional lives as scientists will work together with their European peers on shared projects, European conferences or publications, understanding the benefits of team work for intellectual and scientific development.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 131200,75 Eur

Project Coordinator

Lycée Georges Brassens & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Vilniaus Pilaites gimnazija
• Zespol Szkol Ponadgimnazjalnych Technikum w Sierakowicach
• LICEO CLASSICO STATALE BERTRAND RUSSELL