Education to be a priority for BIOTA-FAPESP in 2013

Plans for the next year include the reformulation of the program site and a conference series for high school teachers.

By Karina Toledo

Agência FAPESP – Broadening communication with audiences outside the scientific community, particularly elementary and high school teachers and students, is one of the priorities of the FAPESP Research Program for Classification, Conservation, Restoration and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity (BIOTA-FAPESP) in its second decade. 

 

The actions to meet this objective, which were announced in meetings held on November 28 at FAPESP’s headquarters, will be instituted beginning in 2013.

 

Among these initiatives is a series of free conferences that will be targeted to high school teachers and students and held throughout the year, with the objective of improving science teaching.

 

“Since FAPESP renewed its funding for the program in 2009, education has become a priority in our strategic plan,” affirms Carlos Alfredo Joly, a professor at Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp) and coordinator of BIOTA.

 

The programming envisages nine conferences that, in addition to presenting concepts and values in the area of biodiversity, will offer in-depth training on each of the Brazilian biomes.

 

“We will present state of the art biodiversity [research] in accessible language to a heterogeneous audience,” says Vanderlan da Silva Bolzani, a professor at the Chemistry Institute at Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp) in Araraquara and a member of the coordination program.

 

The lectures will be recorded, and the content will be accessible on the BIOTA and FAPESP portals, along with other texts and teaching material that can be used in classes, research and group projects.

 

With the objective of transferring knowledge to a broader audience, Joly explains that the program’s coordination team plans to organize exhibitions and broaden participation in social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

 

“We believe that we can contribute to creating a new mentality about the importance of science for youth. As scientists, we also have a mission to motivate children and adolescents, not as a curricular obligation but as a fascinating instrument for discovering the world they live in,” says Bolzani.

Call for proposals

 

During the November meeting, Universidade de São Paulo Education School Professor Martha Marandino and Unesp Rio Claro substitute lecturer Érica Speglich (who is also a student at USP) presented a prospectus for the call for proposals on biodiversity and education research, which should be released in early 2013.

 

The objective is to stimulate the development of education and communication projects that will complement a database hosted by BIOTA.

 

According to Joly, two other calls for proposals are set to be announced in 2014. One of them will be a partnership with São Paulo State Environment Secretariat that is aimed at addressing biodiversity conservation scenarios in priority areas for the next decades.
 

“It was one of the secretariat’s demands for state development planning: consideration of the impact of the expansion of cities, of the infrastructure network – especially highways, pipes and transmission lines – and of agribusiness in conservation priority areas,” explains Joly.

 

The other call will be undertaken in partnership with a project funded by the Global Environment Fund (GEF) to restore biodiversity and carbon stocks in the Paraíba do Sul River Basin.

 

“Ideally, we would like to reconnect the Serra do Mar mountain range to the Serra da Mantiqueira mountain range, thus reestablishing important biological corridors. This will be performed in a manner that will also increase the stability of slopes, reducing the risks of mudslides, protecting springs and water courses, and increasing the quality of the water resources that supply Vale do Paraíba and Rio de Janeiro,” affirms Joly.

 

In Joly’s opinion, projects focused on restoring broad areas such as the Paraíba do Sul Basin can be a “fantastic laboratory” for BIOTA researchers. 

 

“We already know a lot about the restoration of native vegetation but very little about the reintroduction of fauna. Studies on the appreciation of ecosystem services must be advanced, especially to further policies for the Payment of Environmental Services (PSA). Nevertheless, there is a broad set of research questions associated with this GEF project,” he says. In his presentation, Joly showed the format of the new BIOTA portal, which should be launched in December.

 

“The portal is important because the program has a very large community of researchers. We have 125 research grants that have concluded and 81 underway. There are 117 existing fellowships and more than 800 concluded,” he comments.

 

In addition to integrating researchers and projects, adds Joly, the new portal is also set to be a reliable source of accessible information on biodiversity for all facets of society.

 

The FAPESP program also plans to increase the impact factor of BIOTA Neotrópica magazine –currently 0.53 – by broadening the participation of international researchers in the editorial committee and increasing the number of citations of the studies published therein.

 

“The tendency is for the number of citations to increase after indexation on the ISI database [Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge], which occurred this year. This will be fantastic in terms of visibility but will make it more difficult to publish special volumes,” comments Joly.

 

João Meidanis, professor of Unicamp and director of Scylla Informática, presented the newest tools of the Biota-FAPESP Program Information System (SinBiota2.0), which gained a more modern interface, an interactive map of the entire globe and new resources to facilitate the inclusion of data by researchers.

 

At the November meeting, FAPESP’s Scientific Director, Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, affirmed that BIOTA is one of the Foundation’s most successful programs, not only because it produces high-quality researchers but also because the results have an impact on society.

 

“When science is performed well, it never ends: new possibilities and new problems that need solving always emerge. After the first ten years, BIOTA found new interests and gained vitality,” he stated.