A 3 days-trip to raise awareness of biodiversity for students of the Lycée français of Bangkok

Supervised by the science, history-geography and PE teachers of the Lycée Français, IRD researcher Julien Claude and three researchers from the Biology Department of Chulalongkorn University, the students first went on a walk around in Khao Yai National Park. They were shown how to work with iNaturalist, a biodiversity census application feeding scientific databases such as the Global Biodiversity Information System.

This first day was followed by a “Night Safari”, during which numerous species were observed (deer, porcupine, elephants, leopard dog...).

The second day was devoted to the study of biodiversity in the karsts developed in the limestone massifs around the Chulalongkorn University biological station. These karsts are highly threatened by tourist activities and infrastructures, as well as by the mining activity that provides the cement needed for the capital's urban development. The students took the opportunity to consider the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on biodiversity.

After nightfall, the students also took part in various nocturnal scientific activities, including bat trapping, reptile and amphibian inventories and entomology.

Finally, the students took advantage of a last day to discover scientific inventory techniques: the quadrat and the transect. When repeated over time and across different zones, these techniques enable the animal and plant species of a given habitat to be inventoried and their evolution monitored over time.

Back in Bangkok, the students were asked to produce summary videos in groups of 4 on different themes studied during the educational trip, such as karsts, iNaturalist, quadrat and transect techniques and the specific features of the different environments studied.

To round off this chapter, a prize-giving ceremony was held on June 27 at the LFIB to reward the best videos produced, as well as the best iNaturalist contributors during the trip (most observations recorded, most different biodiversity species identified, most observations exploitable for scientific databases).

In this way, the project raised awareness of the importance of ecology and biodiversity protection among mainly city-dwelling students. It also strengthened exchanges between Thai and French academic partners, and between the research and secondary education sectors.