Learn to Engage: A modular course for botanic gardens (LearnToEngage) seeks to build botanic gardens’ capacity to develop effective programmes and activities to engage people with plants. Researchers have noted a worrying decline in public interest in and understanding of plants, at the same time as others are calling for greater public awareness of biodiversity, conservation and the value of plants. Botanic gardens, as institutions that hold documented collections for the purposes of education, scientific research, conservation and recreation (Wyse Jackson, 1999), have the potential to be places wherein our disconnection with nature is re-established. Dodd & Jones (2010) point out that if botanic gardens are to stay relevant to the 21st century world they need to examine their role within a framework of social and environmental responsibility. Common to most botanic gardens is the desire to broaden their audiences, and to undermine the perception that they are just for a particular elite of white, middle-class, older people. But as Dodd & Jones (2010) point out this also requires skills that many botanic gardens professionals may lack. The LearnToEngage Partners will design and pilot a modular blended-learning course. The units of the course will be Working with Diverse Audiences, Interpretation, Science Communication, Research and Evaluation. This will offer botanic garden professionals a flexible Professional Development opportunity that will promote equity and inclusion in botanic garden education and encourage the delivery of high quality, well researched, innovative public engagement. The project has the following objectives:-Enhance inclusive education in botanic gardens through practitioner training-Develop innovative blended learning models for training botanic gardens on public engagement (what we want to do)-Enhance botanic garden professionals’ access to C-VET through embedding training in the digital era (why we want to do it)-Improve services through training on new areas of work for botanic gardens-To support the development of transnational standards for evaluating informal education -Increase botanic gardens’ capacity for showcasing the value of plants and plant science to society. The overall project methodology will include four overlapping phases. Each phase will correspond to the development and piloting of a unit and will include the following major elements: -Designing the course structure and content. This will be included in two intellectual outputs (Trainer Handbook and Participant Handbook) and online resources-Piloting the unit and collecting evaluation data-Reflecting on the delivery of the course and analysing the evaluation data-Finalising intellectual outputs including course structure and contentEach unit will be led by a different botanic garden who has expertise in the area of focus. RBGE will lead the Working with diverse audiences unit, ULisboa will lead the Research and Evaluation Unit, in collaboration with NTU and MUSE will lead the Interpretation unit and the Science Communication unit, in collaboration with BGCI. The courses will be delivered onsite at the leading Partners garden and online through RBGE’s Virtual Learning Environment (Propagate Learning). The project will deliver training to 80 botanic gardens professionals from approximately 44 gardens in the UK, Italy and Portugal. Special attention will be paid to ensuring that priority is given to gardens with small funding, those who have not previously attended comparable training and for other reasons do not have access to professional Development training. Considering the respective audiences of the potential participant and the Partner gardens, the public engagement produced or influenced as a result of the project has the potential to reach up to two million visitors. The units delivered as part of LearnToEngage will be seen as a pilot. It is hoped that the project Partners and other gardens around Europe and the world, will use the Participant and Trainer Handbooks, developed through the project, to deliver further LearnToEngage courses. Considering the fact that botanic gardens see over 500 million visitors each year (Sharrock, 2015), the potential in-direct audience of the project is very large and therefore the project has the potential to be effective in reconnecting the public with nature and engaging them with plants. Through delivery of the project it is expected that participants in the units will further develop their ability to produce effective public engagement and engage new audience groups effectively, as well as sharing their learning with their colleagues, in this way the project will improve the public engagement offered by botanic gardens in UK, Portugal and Italy. This will in turn, improve the botanic garden visitors’ understanding of plant science and conservation and reduce barriers to their participation.
Learn to Engage was a modular course that aimed to build botanic gardens’ capacity to develop effective programmes and activities to engage people with plants. The project partnership designed and piloted a modular blended-learning course. Four blended learning modules were developed in Interpretation, Working with Diverse Audiences, Science Communication and Evaluation and Research. Each module was 12 weeks in duration and consisted of 11 weeks of online learning, hosted by partner RBGE’s online learning platform PropaGate Learning, and one week on-site hosted by the module lead partner. The modules offered botanic garden and museum educator professionals a flexible professional development opportunity and promoted equity and inclusion in botanic garden and museum education. The project’s objectives were: To enhance inclusive education in botanic gardens through practitioner training. To develop innovative blended learning models for training botanic gardens on public engagement (what we want to do). To enhance botanic garden professionals’ access to C-VET through embedding training in the digital era (why we want to do it). To improve services through training on new areas of work for botanic gardens. To support the development of transnational standards for evaluating informal education. To increase botanic gardens’ capacity for showcasing the value of plants and plant science to society. The overall project methodology included four overlapping phases. Each phase corresponded to the development and piloting of a module and included the following major elements: 1. Designing the course structure and content. 2. Piloting the module and collecting evaluation data. 3. Reflecting on the delivery of the module and analysing the evaluation data. 4. Finalising intellectual outputs for each module, which took the form of a Trainer and Participant manual and accompanying online resources. Each unit was led by a different project partner with expertise in the area of focus. MUSE led the Interpretation module, RBGE led the Working with Diverse Audiences module, BGCI and MUSE co-led the Science Communication module and ULisboa and NTU co-led the Evaluation and Research module. All project partners contributed to each module through the development of resources, attending the on-site week, acting as module tutors and evaluation. Train the Trainer events built capacity within the partnership to support module delivery. Each module delivered training for up to 20 education professionals from the botanic garden and museum sector in the UK, Italy and Portugal. Priority was given to small gardens/museums with limited funding, those who had not previously attended comparable training and for other reasons did not have access to professional development training. In total, the project trained 79 individuals from 73 organisations across the UK, Italy and Portugal. Of those trained 82% agreed or strongly agreed that they had been able to use what they had learnt from the modules in their organisation. An additional 171 individuals from 18 countries received training in elements of the LearnToEngage module content through multiplier events in the UK, Italy and Portugal (this included an additional event in the UK delivered at no additional cost to Erasmus+). Through the project’s modules, both the participants and partnership representatives have developed their ability to produce effective public engagement and engage new audience groups effectively. In this way, the project has improved the public engagement offering for botanic gardens in UK, Portugal and Italy, which in turn has improved the botanic garden visitors’ understanding of plant science and conservation and reduced barriers to their participation. Combining the partnership and module participants, the number of visitors that will be impacted by this work is approx. 2.6million. In addition, through our multiplier events and wider dissemination activities of the project outputs we have the potential to reach even more visitors (Multiplier attendee organisation visitor total - 2.5 million visitors). The intellectual outputs have been shared with BGCI’s global network of botanic gardens as well as through the partnership’s national and international contacts so that the resources developed can be used to further enhance the education offering of botanic gardens and museums. Botanic gardens alone see over 500 million visitors each year (Sharrock, 2015), so the potential long-term impact of this project is very large. The partnership will continue to monitor the long-term impacts of the project post completion.