Under the project leadership of Mag. Verena Mayer, BEd, 23 school classes explored the development of the ReNatura® BW3 Gumpenstein wildflower mix as part of the PolliDiversity citizen science project and observed which pollinators visited the newly created flowering areas. Funding from the Education Promotion Fund provided essential materials and tools without which equal participation by all classes would not have been possible.
The participating school classes received standardized experiment instructions, accompanying materials, data collection templates in the form of young researchers' booklets, access to the collaborative research platform Padlet, and scientific support from the project team from the HBLFA Raumberg-Gumpenstein. The flowering areas were flexibly created in the school garden, in raised beds, or in pots, thus making collaborative research easily accessible.
Specifically, with the support of the Education Promotion Fund the printing of the young researchers' booklets for all 23 school classes and the provision of the Padlet software were funded. These materials formed the didactic core of the project: they guided the students step by step through the research process, included assignments, observation sheets, reflection prompts, and supported independent work in the classroom and directly at the wildflower meadows. Padlet enabled all 23 school classes to participate digitally, upload their observations, share photos, document data, and gain insights into the results of other classes. Individual school projects thus became a shared research network in which students from different locations could demonstrate how differently wildflower meadows develop and which insects visit them.
In addition, the funding of two DinoLite microscopes , which were used several times throughout the project. With them, students could examine pollinators more closely, research identifying characteristics, and explore the structure of flowers in detail. This meant that biodiversity was not just discussed abstractly, but made visible in the truest sense of the word.
All participating school classes were also provided with soil thermometers and seeds free of charge. This allowed the students not only to create flowering areas, but also to include site factors such as soil temperature in their observations and to directly grasp ecological relationships.
PolliDiversity's teaching approach focused on inquiry-based, action-oriented, and cooperative learning. The students were not merely participants, but young citizen scientists: they analyzed locations, created wildflower meadows, documented plant development, observed pollinators, recorded weather and soil data, and reflected on their findings. This combination of experiencing nature, digital collaboration, and scientifically grounded data collection perfectly aligns with the educational funding program's goal of actively and responsibly involving students in shaping their living environment.
Biology education accompanying study
The project was accompanied by a biology education study conducted by the University of Salzburg. The results will be published soon; initial preliminary analyses show promising developments regarding knowledge, connection to nature, and emotions. PolliDiversity thus makes an important contribution to the question of how experiencing nature, inquiry-based learning, and education for sustainable development can have a long-term impact.
Evaluation of the ecological data
The data collected as part of the PolliDiversity project and gathered by school classes on Padlet were analyzed in detail in Tobias Huber and Philip Reiter's diploma thesis, clearly demonstrating how strongly the development of the flowering areas depended on the respective site conditions. This was particularly evident in the comparison of the Raumberg and Bleiberg sites: In Raumberg, the slightly higher average temperatures, the poor sandy soil, and the sunny location favored primarily heat-loving annual species such as cornflower and common poppy; the tallest documented plant there reached 147 cm. In Bleiberg, on the other hand, where the average air and soil temperatures were lower and the soil had a higher phosphorus content, German chamomile was particularly prevalent. Clear differences also emerged in the pollinator monitoring : While a particularly large number of honeybees were observed in Raumberg, more wild bees and hoverfly species were recorded in Bleiberg. The school locations also provided exciting comparative data: At the Ursuline Gymnasium Graz, the number of plants rose to up to 1000 by mid-May, at the Trieben Middle School plant heights of up to 55 cm and 70 blossoms were documented at the end of May, and at the North Rottenmann Education Center, photos showed, among other things, the Common Blue butterfly, the garden bumblebee, the furrow bee, the marmalade hoverfly and the furrow bee.
Overall, the results clearly showed that soil quality, nutrient content, water balance, sunlight and existing landscape elements such as deadwood, bare soil, shrubs or water bodies were crucial for how the wildflowers developed and which pollinators visited the areas
The funding from the education promotion fund was therefore far more than just financial support. It enabled 23 school classes to actively participate in a joint biodiversity project using high-quality materials, digital tools, and scientific resources. Seeds became flowering meadows, observations became research data, and students became young researchers for wildflowers, pollinators, and sustainability in practice.
Project number: 2548
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