PANDA MOBILE VIRTUAL CLASS BECOMES A LEARNING PLATFORM FOR BIODIVERSITY
The Covid-19 outbreak has not dampened the spirit of the Panda Mobile volunteers to educate the public. So, on Tuesday, July 21, 2020, WWF-Indonesia's Panda Mobile returned to spread the message of conservation. However, the Panda Mobile activities this time must be done online due to the pandemic. If usually Panda Mobile volunteers come to schools, now they have to greet participants through the Zoom application so that the pattern of material delivery is arranged more interactively. This activity is called Panda Mobile Virtual Class.
The participants of the virtual class on July 21 were students of Sekolah Alam Bekasi. The activity was opened by introducing WWF-Indonesia's Panda Mobile to the first and second graders of Sekolah Alam Bekasi. In addition, participants were also given insights about WWF. After opening with a presentation about Panda Mobile and WWF, Panda Mobile volunteers continued the virtual class session to the topic of biodiversity. In this presentation, participants were introduced to Indonesia's tropical forests. The biodiversity in Indonesia's nature makes our tropical forests rank third in the category of forests with the most flora and fauna. In addition, the Panda Mobile team also conveyed a conservation message that forests have many benefits for human survival, in the form of oxygen, water, and food sources.
The material presented to the next Bekasi Nature School students was still related to biodiversity, but discussed more about fauna. The animals introduced fell into the umbrella species category, which are fauna with large home ranges that have a large impact on the environment. In this session, participants were allowed to use the annotation feature so that they could draw the fauna being discussed.
After the information, the program continued with a virtual tour of Tanjung Belit Village, Bukit Rimbang and Bukit Baling on the island of Sumatra. This tourist village area, which is directly adjacent to North Sumatra, is a Sumaetra tiger habitat that can be visited within 7 - 8 hours from Pekanbaru. Participants were invited to directly travel in a virtual where they visited the village area and met members of the Sumatran tiger monitoring work team. Participants also received an explanation of the intricacies of biodiversity in Rimbang Balik, as well as its natural structure. To understand the role of the work team and researchers, participants were invited to visit Subayang Water Station and see the work area directly, namely the installation point of the camera trap. Through this virtual tour, participants are expected to have an interest in understanding Sumatran tigers and have empathy for their environment. The event then continued with a question and answer session about biodiversity. Participants were allowed to write questions in the chat feature. The questions that arose were quite unique and the answers were explained one by one by the Panda Mobile team. After a few minutes of question and answer session, Marcel, one of the students, said, "Come on my friends, let's save nature together, because later nature will save us too."