The project Life ASAP participated to the last edition of the “European Researchers’ Night”, an event launched by the European Commission, aimed at illustrating to the general public the value and the usefulness of scientific research in our society. This year theme was the involvement of the general public in the progress of science: BE a citizEn Scientist (BEES), a slogan created by Frascati Scienza for the event in Italy, like the bees colony behaviour, in which the contribution of each single member of the colony is fundamental for the entire colony survival.
“We brought to the Researchers’ Night our experience acquired from the previous campaign “Be informed, think, travel”, declined with the different approaches” declared Luciana Carotenuto, naturalist in the Regional Directorate for natural capital (Regione Lazio). “The first approach was focused on the role of travellers as vectors of alien species seeds, spores, etc.. : starting from various scientific international research projects, we showed how many living beings and their remains can be stuck to mountain footwear and we pushed visitors to become defenders of shoe cleaning while travelling, also within the same country. The second approach was focused on storytelling on alien species through the Japanese street theatre “kamishibai”: we illustrated tales of rats that invade islands and marine birds that cannot breed anymore, of water hyacinth imported in Europe by Napoleon from South America, and so on. Last but not least, we invited all participants to turn into an alien for a while: children and adults wore alien eyeglasses to be photographed with the Life ASAP logo, an alien insect. A funny way not to forget the project take-home-message: together we can stop invasive alien species and contribute to biodiversity protection”.