Hosted by SALL , contributed by Gaio-Oliveira on 24 November 2022
The Marka Project: Local Biodiversity - Knowing to Preserve is a project by the AECCB (Camilo Castelo Branco School Group) that aims to build an identity curriculum, articulating the national curriculum with the local natural heritage. This project is worked on in partnership with the Parque da Devesa de Vila Nova de Famalicão, which contributes to the shared choice of a local species or one of local importance that is worth knowing better and intervening in its conservation.
In this school year, swallows and swifts were chosen, migratory species that return to Vila Nova de Famalicão to nest and spend the spring and summer.
The Marka Project involves students and teachers from different grades: 3rd, 5th, 8th, 10th, 11th and 12th grades.
Background
The concept underlying the Marka Project is based on the participation of associations, clubs, museums, foundations and other local entities in the dynamics of the school with the aim of enhancing and diversifying the expression of the curriculum. In terms of curriculum, the main objective of the project is to build an identity curriculum resulting from the articulation of the national curriculum with content associated with local heritage. In this way, students can also assume themselves as disseminators of knowledge, intervening in a reformulation of education that transforms the local environment into a context where everyone feels consciously integrated into a network of relationships and projects.
Taking these assumptions into account, the Marka Project chose Parque da Devesa as a partner entity for the development of local content: “Local Biodiversity - Knowing to preserve… swallows and swifts”.
The Project “Marka: Local Biodiversity - Know to preserve…swallows and swifts” intends to carry out, together with Parque da Devesa, different activities to disseminate the content through information actions, study visits, workshops, culminating in the creation of Infographics or Posters/Final Exhibition/Digital Products produced throughout the school year. The following domains/themes were selected in the various years of schooling involved in the implementation of the project (Figure 1):
• Nature (3rd year, Study of the Environment)
• Diversity of living beings and their interactions with the environment (5th year, Natural Sciences)
• Sustainability on Earth (8th grade, Natural Sciences)
• Biodiversity/Distribution of matter/Transformation and use of energy by living beings (10th grade, Biology and Geology)
• Spaces organized by the population
Environmental valuation in Portugal and community environmental policy (11th grade, Geography A)
• Preserve and restore the environment (12th grade, Biology)
Aim
From an early age, it was noticed that most of the students were unaware of the local biodiversity. As this is a topic of extreme importance and one that is highly threatened, it seemed to us that the best way to reverse this problem would be to work, from an early age, on knowledge of local biodiversity and to articulate it with the curriculum of some subjects. We assume that in this way, several competences can be worked on in students recommended in the student's profile at the end of compulsory schooling, including the development of a critical spirit about the natural environment that surrounds them, artistic capacity and sensitivity, capacity for research, debate and scientific communication, which better prepares them to take informed, aware and responsible citizenship positions with a view to the sustainability of the Planet.
In addition, the students were interventional agents of the community in which they are inserted, acting at the level of awareness and knowledge of the species, alerting to the levels of threats and forms of conservation.
Our partners, being an urban park, can benefit from the respect, knowledge and appreciation of nature by citizens who are more informed and who understand the dynamics of ecosystems, as well as citizens who visit more exhibitions about local heritage exposed on site. In addition to this, and because they are challenged to develop a set of workshops for our students, they see their educational program filled out, which they can then disseminate and offer to other schools.
Co-creation with societal actors
This project is worked on 4 challenges (Marka Methodology). At the beginning of the school year, coordinating professors and a partner entity selected the species to work with. This species is chosen with the knowledge of biologists and technicians whose work in Devesa Park focuses on local species. Later, training is given to teachers by the partner entity. Devesa Park also designs workshops for each school year and students travel to the partner entity where they have their first contact with the chosen species. They collaborate with the school throughout the school year.
Implementation
This project is worked on 4 challenges. As already mentioned, at the beginning of the school year, coordinating professors and a partner entity selected the species to work with. This species is chosen with the knowledge of biologists and technicians whose work in Parque da Devesa focuses on local species. This school year, although species of migratory birds have been chosen, they assume an enormous importance in Famalicão, mainly with regard to the pale swift. It is a species that nests in Famalicão and is being the subject of a broader study with the CIImar, capturing this species to monitor it and put on “backpacks” with chips that allow studying its habits and characteristics.
Once the species were selected, the partner entity provided the students with a workshop (Challenge I) where they learned about their characteristics, threats and forms of protection. With new knowledge, the students worked on the contents in the Natural Sciences classes (Challenge II), using local species as examples. This knowledge was synthesized in scientific/infographic posters, in order to develop scientific communication in students. Articulating with the subject of Citizenship and Development and artistic subjects (Challenge III), the students carried out works where they expressed, in an artistic way, the acquired knowledge. They also elaborate flyers and other works where they could develop techniques and use different materials. At the end of the year, all students involved in the project will exhibit (Challenge IV) their work to the school community and the contents worked on will appear in a digital magazine.
Reflection
This action is extremely important for the knowledge and preservation of local biodiversity. In each academic year, a local species or one of local importance is selected to be studied and articulated with the curricular contents of certain subjects.
In this way, students get to know the characteristics of each species worked on, becoming aware of the threats to them and ways to protect them. They are also involved in actions aimed at the conservation of these species, such as: the georeferencing of nests or sighted birds whose data will be forwarded to biologists so that they can make the best use of this information; the construction of nest-houses and bird feeders, in addition to disseminating the work carried out and raising the awareness of the educational community and the general public.
Futurel Plans
The Marka project will be repeated in the next school year. Each year a new species is chosen and the methodology is repeated. However, the base partnership with the urban park is maintained, but new synergies are established depending on the specificities of the species worked on.