Biodiversity meets music – 8th meeting, coordinator meeting in Stolberg/Rhld. (Germany)
Day 1 – 08/05/23
The coordinators met to discuss and design the concept of the exhibition, which was to be set up in the window area of the assembly hall by Wednesday. Twenty stations were set up: project description, stations on all six journeys, on the exhibition “The fragile paradise” in Oberhausen, further on meadow orchards and the Little Owl, on the renaturation of raised bogs, on habitats for insects, on bees, on the role of national parks, on running waters, on grassland and the design of near-natural gardens and on the topic of biodiversity and music. Two further stations were to focus on the cultural characteristics of each participating region, e.g. traditional folk dances or culinary delicacies. A “guest book”, in which the audience should have the opportunity to comment on the exhibition, the concert, the chosen issues or the whole project, should complete the exhibition. The questionnaires were also to be displayed there.
After the structure had been determined, the review of the material collected in the whole project and the selection of the contents for the stations began. After deciding which texts and photos should be shown in the exhibition, the material was printed out so that we could fill the exhibition the next day.
Day 2 – 09/05/23
For the coordinators, this day was all about designing the exhibition. The information texts were added to the walls, which in turn were supplemented with meaningful pictures. Flags marked the walls on which the mobilities were described. Further exhibits were collected, such as nesting aids for Little Owls and other cavity-nesting birds. In addition, the scent stations “A scent of…” were prepared so that the visitor could not only gain a visual but also an olfactory impression of the regions presented at the stations on the countries. With the help of linked QR codes, it should also be possible for visitors to take away an auditory impression through linked music or videos created.
In addition, once the programme for the joint concert had emerged, the programme booklet was designed. As a result of the discussions about further possibilities to make the project known to a wider public, we decided that the exhibition should remain on display in the assembly hall for as long as possible and that all classes of the school as well as their parents should be given the opportunity to visit the exhibition. Since the entire size of the assembly hall will be needed for the upcoming final exam ceremonies, the exhibition should then be removed and, if necessary, converted into a road show in a reduced form using the folding and transportable partitions.
Day 3 – 10/05/23
In the morning, the coordinators worked on filling the joint digital notebook with content created in the course of the project and closing final gaps in the exhibition. The afternoon was devoted to final arrangements, preparations for the exhibition and the concert – of course we were there: https://biodiversity-meets-music.eu/en/7th-meeting-in-stolberg-rhld-08-05-10-05-23/
Day 4 – 11/05/23
While some groups already started their return journey, others only started their return journey on Friday and used the day to visit Cologne, the coordinators worked through the last meeting, the joint results of the project in the form of the exhibition and the concert and exchanged ideas about the further steps that still need to be taken: Preparing the report for the homepage, transferring the most important project results from the notebook to the homepage, preparing the final report and last but not least about the further cooperation in the future. In addition, the recommendations for action that resulted from deal
ing with the various biodiversity issues were elaborated once again.
In general, the project and especially the cooperation between the different schools was evaluated as very successful, because we started the project under very adverse circumstances due to the pandemic, the flood in Stolberg, and last but not least, due to the three-year duration, there were also personnel changes at one or the other school, which made continuous work on the project more difficult.
The coordinators’ meeting was also successfully concluded with a review of the extensive, multi-layered and interesting exhibition and a joint dinner in Aachen.
René Ostrowski
Project Coordinator
