Ireland International Conference on Education (IICE-2013) How to Implement Biodiversity Research in the Classroom? Karin Ulbrich, Josef Settele, Stefan Klotz Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research-UFZ, Theodor-Lieser-Straße 4, 06120 Halle, Germany Abstract Climate change and dramatic loss of biodiversity are essential subjects for EU research. However, little of current knowledge is reaching the young generation. In order to implement biodiversity research into the reality of school education educational software has been developed which combines desktop work with field experiences. The software PRONAS shows how scientists handle questions about the impact of climate change on species’ habitats. It makes core results of research projects available for students from 12 to 19 and is freely accessible on www.ufz.de/pronas- lernsoftware. Three basic scenarios characterize ”possible future worlds“. Components are the storyline with “Tom and Tina”, the “Science” entry with detailed information, four virtual excursions, the “Species gallery” with more than 30 plant and animal species and a number of interactive projects. A special book for teachers which was written in close cooperation with teachers shows how to apply PRONAS in the in– and out-ofclassroom learning. 1. Introduction The present paper deals with the question how researchers, in particular environmental scientists, can implement research results in the educational sector. This question is of high significance in a situation where young people are more and more alienated from nature, where they are growing up without close and emotional relation to nature [1]. Up to thirty years ago people have been spending many hours a week outside. Nowadays, digital media influence everyday life to an increasing extent. Young people in developed countries consume a huge variety of artificial goods but don’t know what they are made of and where they come from. Knowledge about nature is uncool, less and less students want to study sciences. In this situation, we as today’s ecologists are concerned about how they will be able to care for the Copyright © IICE-2013 Published by Infonomics Society environment later. As early as in 1992, the International Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) emphasized the global commitment to the conservation of nature and it underpinned biodiversity in the fi elds of environmental education. Biodiversity education should form an essential component of the education for sustainable development (ESD). The importance of addressing the issues of natural resources must be highlighted as part of its broader agenda. In particular, ESD should encourage new behaviours to protect the world’s natural resources. Scientists can play an important role in knowledge building and awareness rising among young people as they hold highly valuable goods in terms of comprehensive research projects. We demonstrate how we developed the educational environment PRONAS (PROjections of Nature for Schools, www.ufz.de/pronas-lernsoftware) in close collaboration with educators [7,8]. The scientific basis was the large-scale interdisciplinary research project ALARM (Assessing LARge scale environmental risks for biodiversity with tested Methods, www.alarmproject.net). The integrated project ALARM was made up of 67 partner organizations and 250 scientists from 35 countries and received EC funding of nearly 13 million Euro [6]. ALARM focused on some of the main drivers of biodiversity change (climate and land use change, environmental chemicals, invasive species, and loss of pollinators) and combined ecological, environmental, and economic research. ALARM provides coherent scenarios of socioeconomic, climate, land use and other biodiversityrelevant trends, exploring the framework conditions for biodiversity pressures. The three basic scenarios are: SEDG – Sustainable European Development Goal, BAMBU – Business- As-Might-Be-Usual and GRAS - GRowth Applied Strategy. The real challenge was to establish a learning environment and resources that leverage what we now know about climate change and risks for biodiversity to augment understanding of ecological ISBN 978-1-908320-20-9 19 Ireland International Conference on Education (IICE-2013) processes in students and to motivate them to individual activities.. 2. Methods In order to transfer scientific findings into the reality of school education we brought members of the scientific and educational communities together to work through the ecological and pedagogical issues to effective use of scientific content in education. School teachers – both veteran teachers and those preparing to enter the field have been involved in the network. Pedagogical researchers, educators from field stations, students from schools and from high schools participated in the project. Studies indicate that using digital media is an appropriate way to reach young people. In 2012, nearly 100% of 12 to 19 year old students had personal internet access via computer or laptop [5], as shown in Figure 1. Internet access via smartphones increased from 11% in 2010 to 43% in 2012. 100 75 50 25 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 5/6 7/8 9/10 11/12 Figure 2. Number of ecology-related topics in German curricula for the different grades. Presented are the preliminary results for 13 out of 16 federal states. Green bars: Biology, brown bars: Geography 3. Results The educational software PRONAS has been developed as the main part of the educational environment, (see www.ufz.de/pronas-lernsoftware). We have translated results of the large integrated project ALARM [6], to bring across the concepts of scenario work to the daily lives of high school students (see Fig.3) and were able to jointly develop elements for German biology curricula in formats designed for and mainly by the teachers concerned [8]. These elements combined desk (or rather lap)top work with field experiences (virtual excursions combined with real ones – see Figures 4 to 6). 0 Figure 1. Internet access of 12 to 19 year old students in Germany from 2010 to 2012. Left bars: via Computer; Right bars: via Smartphone [5] It was shown in [4] that students using multimedia in interactive situations were engaged in higher-order thinking compared with what that student would have accomplished with traditional learning. With the aim of an effective software design a preliminary review of curricula has been conducted to find potential links between the research content and the school curricula (Fig. 2). In Germany, each of the federal states is completely responsible for its educational system. So there are 16 states and 16 curricula. The review presented here shows preliminary results for 13 curricula. Links to ecological topics can be found in most of the curricula (Figure 2). While in the younger grades more species-related issues are on the agenda, older students are dealing with more complex issues such as ecosystems, land use or climate change. Copyright © IICE-2013 Published by Infonomics Society Figure 3. Guided tour in PRONAS: Tom and Tina meet real scientists As students learn better from narration and animation a guided tour with the comic-like characters Tom and Tina lead the user through five chapters. Real scientists appear in the software and explain how they deal with the complex tasks of climate change. Interactive tools for the simulation ISBN 978-1-908320-20-9 20 Ireland International Conference on Education (IICE-2013) of scenarios and resulting climatic niches are provided for 15 butterfly species and more than 30 other animal and plant species.. Figure 6. Students on an excursion to the places of spruce forest die-back described in the Virtual excursion. Photo: K.Ulbrich 4. Discussion Figure 4. Virtual excursions (e.g. to the Harz mountains in Germany) offer scientific based content and motivate to undertake real excursions Figure 5. Distribution maps of the European spruce Picea abies,provided in the Virtual excursion. Left: Distribution area in 2000. Right: Potential area in 2080, assuming the scenario RED. Copyright © IICE-2013 Published by Infonomics Society Effective communication between scientists, educators, and curriculum developers is a challenge. For most scientists it is difficult to translate their terminology into language that educators and students can understand. At the same time, educators often lack the time to obtain and prepare the scientific information into a form they can use [2]. In the present project, these obstacles could be resolved in close collaboration of experts of both the scientific and the education community. Tests with 15 classes indicated that students are willing and open to deal with learning resources from “outside”. Many students are enthusiastic about learning from “real scientists”. PRONAS tries to combine “rigor with curiosity and engagement” [3]. Virtual excursions seem to be a useful method to combine abstract learning with life nature experience. Through our activities we had to learn a) how poorly current scientific knowledge has entered many classrooms (a lot of information taught is by far outdated), but also b) how much efforts are really needed to change situations. We think that there is an urgent need to bring knowledge from the spheres of Science really “down to Earth”, i.e. into classrooms – but we also feel that incentives for scientists to do so are often too scarce. Discussions with more than one hundred teachers enabled us to create instructions for teachers that show in detail how the educational software, excursions and suggested citizen science projects can be applied. PRONAS is provided in German and in English. It is freely available on www.ufz.de/pronaslernsoftware. ISBN 978-1-908320-20-9 21 Ireland International Conference on Education (IICE-2013) 5. Conclusions Close collaboration of experts of both the scientific and the education community is needed to make results of environmental research projects available for classroom education. Scientists contribute with actual, highly challenging knowledge bases, whereas educators bring in their age-based teaching experience. Story-like guided tours, virtual excursions, interactive tests, and simulation tools are proved didactic approaches for educational software that inspires students to go from the computer to nature and back from the nature to computer. 6. References [1] Brämer, R., Jugendreport Natur 2010, Bonn, Marburg, Juni 2010 . www.natursoziologie.de, 04.09.13. [2] T. S. Ledley, L. Dahlman, C. McAuliffe1, N. Haddad, M. R. Taber, B. Domenico, S. Lynds, M. Grogan. Making Earth Science Data Accessible and Usable in Education. Science 333, 2011, pp 1838-1839. [3] J. Mervis, Science Standards Begin Long, Hard Road to Classroom. Science 17 July 2013. [4] MetriGroup-Commissioned by Cisco. Multimodal Learning Through Media: What the Research Says. Cisco Systems,Inc.,2008. http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/education/Multim odal-Learning-Through-Media.pdf, 15.08.13. http://www.mpfs.de/index.php?id=527, 04.09.13. [5] MPFS – Medienpädagogischer Forschungsverbund Südwest, JIM-Studie 2012. [6] J. Settele I. Kühn, S. Klotz, V. Hammen, J. Spangenberg. Is the EU Afraid of its Own Visions? Science 315, 1220 (2007) (see www.alarmproject.net). [7] Ulbrich, K., J. Settele, C. Hörning and F.F. Benedict, Biodiversity in Education for Sustainable Development – Reflection on School – Research Cooperation, Pensoft Publishers, 2010. [8] Ulbrich, K., A.K. Lindau, C. Hörning and J. Settele, Lebensräume von Tieren und Pflanzen simulieren – Zukunftsszenarien zum Einfluss des Klimawandels, Pensoft Publishers, 2011. (German language material for the application of scenario techniques for schools and environmental education). Copyright © IICE-2013 Published by Infonomics Society ISBN 978-1-908320-20-9 22