Baltic Sea Project's webinar: "Air quality, lichen, climate change & citizen science" on 8.02.2021

We are inviting you to join the Baltic Sea Project's webinar: "Air quality, lichen, climate change and citizen science" on 08. February 15-16.30 pm CET. We are delighted and excited to offer this experience to more than 180 member schools of UNESCO ASPnet around the Baltic Sea.

Air pollution is one of the world’s largest health and environmental problems. Globally, death rates from air pollution have been falling which has mainly been the result of progress on tackling indoor pollution but still a lot can be done to prevent outdoor pollution.

The webinar is part of the Baltic Sea Project’s air quality month and is designed to give participants some background information on the global air quality problem; to provide some examples about citizen science projects; to share concrete methods to motivate action connected to the Sustainable Development Goals related to air quality; to ask schools to join lichen BioBlitz and to teach how to use the iNaturalist application; to share a lichen identifier sheet (printable) for the 12 most common bioindicators for air quality around the Baltic Sea; and to call out for a lichen-related art campaign “Green life among lichen”. Everything to help you create active and interesting school lessons in your country for better environmental understanding as a member of the UNESCO Associated Schools Network! So, join us! Registration We would like all participants to register for the webinar before the 8th of February. Please use this link to register: https://forms.gle/8YVRHzrCe7HpzuXh8 We will collect your e-mail addresses to send the proper link and password to join the webinar to all registered participants on the morning of February 8th. We kindly ask you to NOT post the link or password anywhere online for the safety of the webinar.

Download the whole description in pdf from here! Programme & speakers (schedule is in Central Europe Time): 14.50 - Testing microphones, webcams and greeting the participants 15.00 - Opening words (Gedy Matisen, Estonia) 15.05 - Air pollution problem on a global scale and the Baltic Sea Project (Martin Jarrath, Germany) 15.20 - What is citizen science? Examples of different CS projects in Estonia (Triin Edovald, Estonian Environmental Agency) 15.35 - Starting a lichen project at school & getting involved in citizen science (Nicolai Krichevsky, Germany & Gedy Matisen, Estonia) 15.50 - Energizer - lichen yoga (Gunta Kalvāne, University of Latvia) 15.55 - Why is lichen used as an air quality bioindicator and what connections can we draw with climate change? (Tiiu Tõrra, University of Tartu) 16.10 - Short introduction to the international activities we offer for the schools in the network until the end of summer 2021:

• 8.-28.02.2021 - Lichen-related art contest (Gretė Vaičaitytė, Lithuania)
• 22.-26.03.2021 - UN Water Day celebrations (Elina Koskela-Tarvas, Finland)
• 4.-7.05.2021 - Årø virtual camp (Nicolai Krichevsky, Germany)
• 10.-13.06.2021 - International UN Model (Viktoria Lepp, Estonia)
• 26.08.2021 - Baltic Sea Day (Jussi Tomberg, Finland)

16.25-16.30 - Closing the webinar (Gedy Matisen, Estonia)

All the presentations can be seen here: https://unesco-bsp.blogspot.com/p/resources.html Technical guide to the Zoom webinar We recommend that before you sign in to the webinar on the appropriate date and time, please spend some time checking that you have the correct system requirements. Please make sure to connect 10 minutes before the start of the webinar. You will need the following before the webinar starts:

• The Webinar ID number and link, as well as the password.
• A reliable internet connection
• A computer or smartphone

Please see the complete technical requirement here. Kindly test these before the Webinar begins. To join the webinar, click the link in the email received from the webinar organizer Gedy Matisen from Tartu Nature House, Estonia. You will be directed to the Zoom website and from here you will need to download and install the Zoom application or start from your browser or click ‘Open URL: Zoom Launcher’ if the Zoom application is already installed. After clicking this, a pop up box will open asking you to complete your registration. Youtube-Live-Stream and recorded video The capacity of the Zoom webinar is 100 participants but you can also join via the Youtube live stream (that link is also shared with you via email). The webinar will be recoded and can also be found later from our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCctOncL9m7fIVjxCfkm-Kyg Interpretation and Q&A The language of the webinar is English. We welcome both teachers and students who understand spoken English to join the webinar. As an audience of the webinar, you can raise your questions via Chat in written format during the session. Best greetings from the Baltic Sea Project’s citizen science team: Gedy Matisen, Nicolai Krichevsky, Gretė Vaičaitytė, Jussi Tomberg, Alla Kushka, Martin Jarrath, Gunta Kalvāne