Toolkit for lecturers and students now available online!

CONTAN project’s overarching goal was to build a network of higher education institutions and natural science museums in the EU and Tanzania capable to implement state-of-the-art training to boost capacity and curricula in monitoring and conservation of Tanzania’s outstanding biodiversity, hence improving the country’s higher education offer while contributing to achieve its green growth targets.

A main action towards addressing this ambitious goal has been the realization of a comprehensive set of 89 video-lectures prepared and given by 21 lecturers from the four EU partners, made available on-line to Tanzanian students and fellow lecturers, and eventually variably integrated into Tanzanian partners’ curricula. The e-learning modules have been designed through initial discussions among lecturers from all partners, and then complemented by field training sessions held in the highly biodiverse forests of Udzungwa Mountains and Kilimanjaro National Parks.

Justified by the lack of comprehensive reference material, this toolkit is designed to primarily help students, and in turn their lecturers, to navigate through the e-learning material and support the integration of theoretical and field training, hence augmenting the reach and potential of the modules. The document indeed provides summaries of all lectures along with much-needed reference material and a selection of tutorials for some of the analytical methods.

Beyond addressing these project needs, the toolkit is also a compendium that should assist the continued adoption of CONTAN lectures beyond project life, especially given that the upgraded courses by the three Tanzanian partner institutions have integrated much of the e-learning
module material into their Bachelors’ and Masters’ curricula. At the same time, it is our hope that this project product will serve the dissemination and use of the project outputs beyond the institutions involved in the project, whereby other universities, conservation agencies and individual professionals can benefit of this effort.

Tanzania is endowed with an outstanding wealth of natural resources that features an exceptional amount of biodiversity, and one third of its surface is set aside for conservation through a unique network of protected areas. This treasure brings an asset of vital ecosystem services that contributes a large share of the country’s economy, not lastly through the hundreds of thousands of people visiting Tanzania’s parks and reserves each year.

In this context, higher education institutions play a critical role in documenting, valuing and protecting the country’s biodiversity through research, monitoring and training the new generations of scientists and custodians of the land. Achieving these goals, however, implies the capacity to deliver state-of-the-art knowledge, and align the training offer and scientific capacity to international standards, that in the field of biodiversity science are rapidly evolving to keep pace with global changes.

The engagement of Tanzanian institutions in international alliances that can support achieve these goals is therefore of paramount importance. Over the last 4 years, the EU-Erasmus+ CONTAN project has helped achieving the missions of Tanzanian institutions by establishing a network with European universities and museums that has facilitated the updating of their curricula in biodiversity through e-learning, peer-to-peer knowledge transfer, field and theoretical student training, and upgrading of research infrastructure.

The toolkit is so produced as part of the CONTAN project to serve as a handbook that can support the use and adoption of the CONTAN E-learning material and integrate class teaching and field or laboratory. The toolkit is therefore conceived to aid both lecturers of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) and students in biology, environment, and wildlife management courses, both at B.Sc. and M.Sc. levels.
The present toolkit aims at supporting the integration of the CONTAN E-learning platform with class teaching and practice in the field of biodiversity conservation and, due to a lack of comprehensive manuals in the current literature, this handbook aims as well to assist lecturers, students, and professionals to use and apply the knowledge developed by the project through the E-learning component.

Thus, the toolkit aims to facilitate users to navigate through the E-learning platform, by summarising the lecture contents, providing all
references (as a list and as a cloud repository with pdfs) and additional material such as references for field protocols, links to exercises and tutorials.

Finally, the toolkit bridges theory with real-world case studies, often from Tanzania.

WHAT STUDENTS WILL LEARN?

🡢 The importance of tropical forests and why monitoring and conserving their biodiversity is so critical
🡢 Most relevant and innovative techniques for monitoring the major taxa present in tropical forests
🡢 Overview of the state-of-the-art analytical tools to deal with data collected in the field

HOW LECTURERS WILL BENEFIT?
🡢 Upgrade of their personal skills through refresher courses on major subjects on conservation biology and ecology
🡢 Acquisition of innovative techniques for their research
🡢 Ability to guide students through multiple and variegated research topics

This publication was developed in the framework of the CONTAN project “Developing curricula for biodiversity monitoring and conservation in Tanzania” within the Erasmus + Capacity-Building projects in the field of Higher Education Grant Agreement Number 619206-EPP-1-2020-1-IT-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP.

On behalf of CONTAN project PARTNERS:

Francesco Rovero, University of Florence, ITALY
Massimo Bernardi, MUSE – Museo delle Scienze, ITALY
Nikolaj Sharff, University of Copenhagen, DENMARK
Claudia Hemp, Bayreuth University, GERMANY
Emanuel Martin, College of African Wildlife Management, TANZANIA
Catherine Masao, University of Dar es Salaam, TANZANIA
Charles Kilawe, Sokoine University of Agriculture, TANZANIA

CONTRIBUTORS TO THE TOOLKIT:

Morten E Allentoft, Claudia Barelli, Massimo Bernardi, Petr Blazek, Lars Dinesen, Sara Fratini, Ilaria Greco, Andreas Hemp, Claudia Hemp, Peter A Hosner, Pekka Hurskainen, Ulrich Meve, Peter R Møller, David Nash, Martin R Nielsen, Thomas Pape, Sabine Remmele, Francesco Rovero, Giacomo Santini, Nikolaj Scharff, Sigrid Schumann-Liede.