At the beginning of February, a two-day national conference called Two Days with Biology Didactics took place in Prague, Czech Republic. This annual event is organized by the Faculty of Education, Charles University. Its goal is to bring together scientists and biology teachers, provide them with up‑to‑date knowledge, create opportunities to share teaching experience, and allow them to try out practical educational activities suitable for their students.

We used this unique opportunity not only to gain new ideas and inspiration but, above all, to present and promote the TEAM#UP project and the DERTO platform. Our aim was to raise awareness of both the project and the platform, and to highlight the possibility of using their teaching resources among secondary school teachers. The DERTO platform offers a collection of educational materials in five languages and allows teachers to easily incorporate these resources into their lessons.

It was our third time participating in the conference, and this year we decided to let our two students take the lead. Both are Bachelor’s degree students training to become secondary school teachers. Taking part in such a large event gives them valuable experience and a chance to meet experienced educators who may become their future mentors or colleagues.

In his 45-minute workshop, Šimon began by summarizing the possibilities of using virtual reality (VR) tours in teaching. VR tours can make lessons more engaging and allow teachers to show students interesting places without leaving the classroom. Moreover, VR tours can be created by the students themselves—for example, after visiting a demonstration site during a field trip. Students can collect audiovisual material and assemble it into a VR tour, which can serve as a creative and motivating form of presenting their assignments. The workshop then continued with a real-time, step-by-step demonstration of how to create a VR tour.

Later, in front of a full auditorium of teachers, Janča presented the TEAM#UP project, the DERTO platform, its resources, and examples of how they can be used in teaching. As a demonstration, she introduced a worksheet focused on identifying differences in invertebrate species richness between intensively and extensively mown urban grasslands. This worksheet is not yet available on the DERTO platform, as it still needs to be tested in lessons. However, the positive feedback from the audience clearly showed that this idea has strong potential for classroom use.

Both presentations were a success, and we hope that the DERTO platform will become a valuable source of information on ecological restoration for teachers. 

You can find out more about the DERTO platform at derto.teamup2restore.eu