Learning and Living with Insects: action competence for sustaining biodiversity

Insects are essential for ecosystems and for humans, which makes sustaining insect biodiversity a key component for sustainable transformation. However, insects are declining at alarming rates.

Solutions for insect conservation are available, but effective ways to disseminate research for sustaining biodiversity are necessary to overcome identified implementation gaps. We need to go beyond knowledge, to facilitate human actions for sustaining insect biodiversity.

The “Learning and Living with Insects” project aims to implement and disseminate an innovative science-based educational approach to foster societal stakeholders’ actions for sustaining biodiversity.

In the project, key stakeholders representing schools, education organisations, universities, municipalities, and housing agencies collaborate to effect change on three main levels.

First, the project disseminates science-based school education on sustaining biodiversity on a large scale by collaborating with two different educational organisations. Second, the project integrates educational approaches based on action competence in higher education.

Finally, the project aims to overcome practical challenges of supporting biodiversity in municipalities, by implementing effective educational strategies in administrations and public housing agencies.

Research outputs from the project will be evaluated under the newly-developed action-competence framework to foster adaptive learning and future innovations.