The presentation was attended by 3rd year students from following Bachelor’s programmes: Ecology of biotechnology production, Biology, Biology and Chemistry, and Biology and English language that currently are doing their field practice in Ecology at the base situated on the Black Sea coast. Project manager and technical assistants have informed the students about project’s goal – raising public awareness on marine biodiversity of the Black Sea and promotion of citizen science among local population and guests to the Black Sea coast for collection of data on Black Sea biodiversity. Some of the problems faced by the Black Sea were presented – invasive species and their impact on local fauna, pollution, overfishing and depleted fish stocks.
Work version of the website BLACKSEAWATCH.ORG was demonstrated that is being developed within the project together with the smart phone applet with same name that will be working under Android and iOS operational systems. Students were introduced to main functions of the application for registration of user, submitting information with location and pictures for observed flora and fauna species, creation of map with reported findings, catalogue of species included in the applet.
Main interest of the students was when the smart phone app will be available for Android and iOS at Google Play and iTunes store. The expected launch date for Android version is mid July and afterwards the Apple version will be finalized. Students in natural sciences are among the main target groups for potential user of the tools being developed within the project.
Contacts:
Dimitar Popov - +359885108712, e-mail: dpopov@greenbalkans.org
