Natusfera and LiquenCity presented to the teaching community from Madrid

Felipe Castilla and Carmen Lujano (GBIF-Spain) presented the citizen science platform Natusfera and its associated project LiquenCity during the II Team Meeting of the Environmental Education Programme, from the Department of Education of the Madrid Community that took place in Villaviciosa de Odón in June 11th, 2018.

Around 30 teachers and educators attended the event. The presentation delivered by our team included an introduction about the GBIF network and its link with the citizen science, giving details about the main features of Natusfera. It also included an explanation about the project LiquenCity, funded by FECYT. This project aims to raise awareness in the urban population of Madrid and Barcelona about the environmental pollution effects and its incidence on human health. To achieve such target, the project will involve students in the monitoring and tracking of epiphyte lichens from these cities.

In the last part of this meeting, a practical activity using Natusfera was carried out in the natural area of El Forestal, and participants had the opportunity to make some observations which were uploaded to the project https://natusfera.gbif.es/projects/el-forestal-de-villaviciosa-de-odon.