Protecting biodiversity hotspots with the TiME educational tool

Abstract

Land transformation and degradation is the major driver of current species extinction, lately recognized as the sixth mass extinction. To address this threat innovative programs that combine both immediate remedies of land protection and comprehensive educational programs are soughed. This is My Earth (TiME) (http://this-is-my-earth.org) is a new voluntary NGO that was established to address these challenges. TiME uses crowd funding to save privately own lands in biodiversity hotspots, providing them protection. Membership fees are very affordable (as low as $1 a year) and 100% of all fees and donations are directed to fund land purchase and protection. TiME welcomes children to become members and use its website to vote for their preferred habitat to be conserved (following vetting by an international committee of experts), and thus offering them the power to decide for the organization where in the world it will purchase lands. Using the PBL [=Problem Based Learning] pedagogical approach we developed a workshop, based on the above inherited powers of the TiME approach, that empowers children to adopt a sense of critical thinking as they become activists for wildlife protection. We began by developing a lesson plan that includes a short presentation of the problem, group discussions about potential solutions, class debates regarding the optimal lands to be saved, and a class-wide democratic vote. Following this workshop we examined the level of awareness and attitude of the children towards activism and democratic position. We report here preliminary results as a preliminary database for developing an international TiME based lesson plan.

Participants [N=80] revealed a democratic orientation regarding land reservations and expressed strong affinity for activism and further conservation activities. Responses to the Likert scale-based questions, indicate considerable support for involvement, with endorsement of five actions recommended in the questionnaire: writing letters to governmental authorities, signing petitions, participation in demonstrations, organizing demonstrations, and donations. Interestingly, donations received the highest support level, thus endorsing the TiME approach, while organizing a demonstration the lowest. It appears that the global habitat crisis presented to the students via the TiME platform triggers debate and critical thinking even beyond conservation to such topics as democracy and equity. The TiME website is emerging as an educational tool that offers a novel experience where teachers can harness curiosity and environmental engagement in the learning process about conservation issues. Educators use TiME to explain basic conservation concepts and involve classes in discussions about environmental decision-making and associated ethical dilemmas, prioritization of conservation efforts and practical ways to protect nature.