Despite the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020 TREES successfully delivered for the third consecutive year one of its flagship initiatives of community engagement, under teaching and learning. The initiative is a Master course in scientific dissemination, originally launched as part of the EU-funded project on sustainable diving tourism Green Bubbles (www.greenbubbles.eu). It consists of 12 lectures delivered to marine biology master students at the Polytechnic University of Marche, Italy (www.univpm.it). The classes include theory and practice on scientific dissemination skills, which the students can exercise via workshops and showcase on a dedicated Facebook group page: “Marine Science Dissemination”. The workshops include dissemination using a conference presentation, social media, games, broadcasts and podcasts, infographics, and cartoons and animations. After a successful launch in May 2018 to a small class of three students, the course gained popularity and was again delivered in 2019 to a class of six marine biologists.
Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the course was transformed into online teaching and learning, and was flawlessly delivered to a large class of 15 students in 2020. Another 30 students have registered for the online class of 2021, including five marine biologists from the prestigious international Master’s program IMBRSea (www.imbrsea.eu). The group page “Marine Science Dissemination” today counts over 130 members and the community continues to grow.
The course has had a great impact on various levels. It has strengthened partnerships between TREES and the Polytechnic University of Marche, resulting in research collaborations, joint applications to EU funding schemes, visiting researchers, and the exchange of students under the Campus World staging program (https://campusworld.net).
Importantly, the course has gained huge success among marine biologists at the Polytechnic University of Marche, with growing numbers every year – a total of 54 registered students are counted to this day since 2018. These are some of the testimonials collected for the 2020 course delivery:
“I was very happy to try my hand at things that otherwise I would probably never have done, and to see that they are actually approachable!”
“I enjoyed the workshops a lot and I learned to use many programs I didn't know.”
The temporary transformation of the course from face-to-face teaching to online teaching using screen recordings has not discouraged the students, and has been widely appreciated:
“I believe that the online method and the more time available have given us the opportunity to work more on the various projects.”
“Personally I am very happy with the recordings because they gave me the opportunity to organize the timing without having to depend on the timetable of the lessons or the internet line. Above all you can download the lessons and then view them endlessly in case of doubts.”
It is this kind of feedback that motivates lecturers during difficult times such as those we are facing today, to persevere in the delivery of engaged teaching and learning that can benefit communities and give exposure to TREES and the North-West University!