PIC a TREE at Otto-von-Guericke-University
The first official EU GREEN event on OvGU's campus. 75 local students took part in the citizen science initiative Tree BioBlitz
On the 12th of October 2023, 75 students from Werner-von-Siemens High School were working on a citizen science project to name the trees on OVGU’s main campus. The event took place between Walter-Rathenau-Street and Nordpark (North Park). PIC a TREE is part of an initiative launched by the European University Network EU GREEN called Tree BioBlitz, whose aim it is to involve children in citizen science.
OVGU is one of the nine universities within EU GREEN (The European University Alliance for Sustainability: responsible Growth, inclusive Education and Environment) which brings together peripheral regionally anchored but globally oriented mid-sized universities from across Europe, each focused on a particular set of sustainability-related practices.
Children from local schools mapped the trees across the alliance‘s European University campuses in France, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Poland and Romania.
“In autumn, trees are at their most colourful, and ATU designed this citizen science event together with our alliance partners, to share our biodiversity knowledge with local communities”, stated Professor Frances Lucy, the EU GREEN lead for ATU – our partner in Ireland. ”One of the main aims of EU GREEN is to engage with our regions to promote sustainability and when children learn citizen science skills from event like this, they become environmental champions for life![VJ1] ” In a playful way and using digital technologies - the biodiversity app iNaturalist was used to carry out the event - students could learn something about their city’s biodiversity. The combined tree results were recorded in the app, and EU GREEN will produce an open source report which will be freely available.
Citizen science projects introduce citizens, in this case children and young people, to scientific practice and not only provide important insights into the way science ‘works’, but also represent a form of participation in knowledge production.
