The school year recently began with the awarding ceremony of the MEDCIS Scientific Gaming 2017/2018 Competition, held in Lecce, on 28 September 2018. The ceremony was attended by representatives of the winning teams of Senior and Junior categories, who had the chance of presenting their projects and sharing their enthusiasm about this experience. MEDCIS scientific game participants were asked to deepen the objectives of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), enabling the acquisition of knowledge related to the Mediterranean Sea and triggering students’ interest and attention in biodiversity, marine noise and marine litter.
The new school year also sees the start of the new editions of the Serious Game competitions, supported by LifeWatch Italy, addressing different aspects of the study of biodiversity and ecosystems.
The initiatives proposed for 2018/2019 have been organised together with the National Academy of Sciences, University of Salento and Horizon 2020 projects ENVRIplus and Ecopotential. Students are invited to make experimental projects, aimed at the comprehension and application of the scientific method on ecologically related themes, and to challenge each other through an online competition based on a serious game.
The initiatives will have both national and international dimensions, starting with EcoLogicaCup, targeting the Italian landscape with an exclusively online competition, and following with the Scientific games promoted by ENVRIplus and Ecopotential.
The competitions will be going on for the whole school year, offering materials to learn more about the subject, and proposing intermediate steps, such as training sessions and/or the experimental project delivery and evaluation. The final phase, the online competition, will be held during spring 2019, and the exact dates will be communicated on the related platform in the upcoming says.
The Scientific Games are played in teams, competing in Junior or Senior category according to the students’ age. Registration is free of any charges and (shortly) available on the respective web platforms.