Welcome 2021

 

GOODBYE 2020 AND WELCOME 2021!

To say farewell to 2020 was quite easy due to the negative effects of Covid 19. It surprised the whole world in the middle of March. For the spring term Unesco BSP had plans to organize International Water Day events, Coordinators´meeting in Tallinn in April, SciCruise Åbo/Stockholm, a visit to Ministry of Environment etc. Everything was cancelled. In the middle of March started home schooling time which continues, who knows  how long. 

The most remarkable event concerning the BSP was the leap to online meetings. It was frustrating to cancel tickets to Tallinn where the coordinators´meeting was supposed to be organized. But we met instead via Teams on 3.-4. April. I still remember how exciting it was before start and how big was the relief after the successful meeting. It showed the new way of communication and it will stay, partly I hope. These virtual meetings will not replace face to face meetings which are necessary for good connections and collaboration. Well, we have reduced CO2 emission and this is not bad.

The autum work 2020 started very quickly after summer holidays. We took part on the Baltic Sea Day on 27th August and organized BSP BioBlitz. iNaturalist is a good example of an app how artificial intelligence helps to identify species and how it gathers individuals who are interested of diversity in nature. Then, the Finnish Unesco teachers´conference opened the channels to international participants. There was a big group of friends of the Baltic Sea who had interesting talks about histoty and futurre of the BSP network. This was on the 2nd September. The next challenge was the BSP Network Webinar on 27.-28.October organized by Tiina Sarisalmi. And the Web Quiz ran and made record result of participants. Finland among others took also actively part on Unesco´s initiative Futures of Education. Activating pupils, students, teachers and parents to be in dialoque is crucial in forming the ´after pandemic world´. The responsibility lies on everybody.

The Finnish Unesco and BSP teams have been very lucky having Paula Mattila as a chair and a member in these groups. Now she will retire and leave us. On behalf of the Unesco I would like to take this oppostunity to thank you Paula, for your consructive, outstanding and deeply unesco-minded cooperation over all these years! All the best to the future!

We made big steps forward and I hope we will continue in the same spirit! Thank you All!

Successful New Year 2021!

Aira Undén-Selander

General coordinator of the BSP 2019-2021