+Biodiversity CIÊNCIAS
Living Laboratory logo, project title and various photographs of animals and plants
+Biodiversity CIÊNCIAS: Mobilizing the CIÊNCIAS community to promote sustainability on Campus.
SGD's 15 - Life on Land, 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities, and 4 - Quality Education
In 2019, the projects “FCUL+Verde: promoting and valuing flora in Ciências” and “BioComunidade: together we discover biodiversity in Ciências”, now united under the name “+Biodiversity CIÊNCIAS: Mobilizing the Ciências community to promote sustainability on campus”, emerged as a response to the challenge launched by Ciências ULisboa in the form of the first edition of the Ideas for Sustainability Competition. This competition “aims to identify and promote initiatives by Ciências members that can contribute to sustainability, in its various aspects, on campus and in its interaction with the city of Lisbon”.
+Biodiversity CIÊNCIAS intends to apply the concept of sustainability to the green spaces of Ciências ULisboa and to characterize and monitor their biodiversity over time, involving both the Ciências community and the citizens who live and work in the area. To this end, the project team uses classic biodiversity surveys (floristic and faunistic), sophisticated monitoring equipment (video, acoustic sensors and drones), and citizen science. Citizen science is the involvement of citizens in scientific processes, allowing them to acquire knowledge in different areas and a greater development of analytical and critical thinking skills. The involvement of these non-professionals in scientific research and environmental monitoring has also become a new scientific approach. This component is promoted on the BioDiversity4All platform, through which everyone - the Faculty community and those who live or work nearby - can contribute with species records, increasing knowledge about the diversity of the campus, its natural values and ecosystem services, and assessing trends in the face of a climate change scenario.
The team for this project is very comprehensive, encompassing various departments of the Faculty, researchers, professors, staff, and students. This allows for different perspectives on the campus and the services that biodiversity provides. At the same time, new connections are being established between the science community, the surrounding community, and the environment, hoping to contribute, through this project, to more participatory and democratic processes.
Everyone's help and collaboration is important in implementing the project. Simply install the INaturalist app on your phone, join the +Biodiversidade Ciências project, and start registering species! To find out more details and stay up-to-date on the latest news and initiatives from +Biodiversidade Ciências, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
The project began on 1 September 2020, and by 21 February 2022, it had:
4642 observations
894 species
169 observers
570 identifiers
The official launch of the project took place at Ciências Research Day - 28 September 2020.
Coordinators: Patrícia Tiago and Sergio Chozas
Members of the project: Ana Leal, Inês Rosário, Otília Correia, Joana Martelo, Maria Amélia Martins-Loução, Cristina Branquinho, Ana Isabel Correia, Ana Catarina Luz, Cristina Antunes, Ana Júlia Pereira, Margarida Santos Reis, Raquel Mendes, Patrícia Garcia Pereira, Paula Gonçalves, José Lousa, Cristina Catita, Pedro Pinho, Ana Margarida Santos, Cristina Máguas, Biology Students’ Group of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon
Learn more about this project:
News:
For more information, please contact sustentabilidade@ciencias.ulisboa.pt.