Biobased Challenge

There were a lot of groups that participated, but also individual submissions of students from all over Europe: from Greece to Ireland and from Finland to Spain.

All contributors have worked to extremes to explain the ‘biobased economy’ to the different target groups. The organization and the jury are very surprised about the number of entries and their level.

The jury is now looking at the entries and judging them, so that eventually a winner comes out. The winners will be announced on Thursday, March 14 at a conference on the internationalization of biobased education, which will be held in the Netherlands.

All participants will be notified soon and all winners will be contacted after 15 March about the transfer of the prize.

Meet the jury of this Challenge

Meet Borbala (Bori) Pocze

I work in project management and pedagogical content development at European Schoolnet (EUN*), a partner in the BLOOM project. Within the BLOOM project, I am coordinating the development of the BLOOM School Box – a set of pedagogical learning scenarios which will support teachers to bring bioeconomy into their STEM teaching. I was was previously involved in social policy research, teaching and education consultancy.

*EUN is the network of 34 European Ministries of Education, based in Brussels. As a not-for-profit organisation, EUN aims to bring innovation in teaching and learning to its key stakeholders: Ministries of Education, schools, teachers, researchers, and industry partners. The BLOOM project aims at bringing together partners from across Europe to debate, communicate, and engage the public in the potential of bioeconomy.

Meet Georges Sakellaris
I am Director of Business Development of the Biotech company SciMed based in Prague, Czech Republic. At the same time, I am a consultant on Bioeconomy matters at the University of South Bohemia. In this perspective, we organize the yearly International seminars on Bioeconomy, and we are involved in Research and Education priorities. Previously I was Research Director at the National Greek Research Foundation and at the IEM of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

Meet Han van Osch
I am programme manager Biobased Economy at the Centre of Expertise Biobased Economy. This Centre is part of Avans University of Applied Sciences and HZ University of Applied Sciences. I am responsible for the educational projects; the Think Biobased Challenge is part of these educational projects. Before working at the Centre of Expertise Biobased Economy I have been working for 25 years as professor, policy advisor, project manager and overall manager at Avans University of Applied Sciences.

Challenge information

The Think Biobased Challenge invites you, a European College or University student, to design Biobased educational material that students will never forget. Help creating a better environment and win prizes just by doing so! We are all on the verge of a transition to a world in which we want and need to be less dependent on fossil raw materials. In the transition to this world, we aim for an economy that runs on biomass as a raw material.
For the transition to a Biobased Economy we need brilliant minds in the future. The road there already starts in primary education (9-12 years old), secondary education (13-16 years old) and secondary vocational education (17-22 years old).

You are an European College or University student and we challenge you to develop innovative teaching materials that can be used to draw attention to the Biobased Economy. Not in a boring lesson, but in such a way that this learning experience can always stay with you. How cool is it when students throughout Europe get to work with a Biobased Lesson that you have created? Moreover, a total prize money of € 9.000,- will be divided among the best entrants!

Conditions:

The teaching material:

• will be immediately usable in education (primary or secondary education, or secondary vocational education),
• stimulates awareness about Biobased thinking and doing among young students,
• is realized in English and in your own language (if that is not English),
• will be judged by an international jury consisting of subject experts.

You:

• are a College or University student (you can also participate as a group of students),
• live and study within Europe,
• feel connected to biobased thinking and doing.

After reading the above, ideas are already bubbling up inside you. No worries, you can begin right away! Just follow the steps:

1. Read the full Rules and Regulations
2. Use the lesson format to get you started
3. Register in our Canvas environment and enroll in our MOOC Think Biobased
4. Once registered and enrolled, go to the Think Biobased Challenge module and hand in your submission
5. In any case, hand in your submission until 1 February 2019.

If you have questions you can mail them to Monique Bakker and we will get back to you as soon as possible.