Digital beekeeping to learn and play
With the “beeactive” app from the Würzburg Bee Research Association, children and young people can playfully learn more about bees and the biodiversity of various wild plants in their environment. The aim is to bring nature conservation and species protection into focus and to broaden their awareness of this. Flora Incognita provides the automatic identification of plant species as an important game content of “beeactive”.
The core principle of the app “beeactive” is the playful accompaniment of the virtual beekeeper Melli Fera and thus the establishment and care of digital bee colonies. Users can place individual beehives on an interactive map and search the real surroundings of the bee colony for flowering plants within a certain radius. The plants found are then automatically identified directly by the app. In this way, the virtual bee colony is supplied with pollen and nectar and the users can expand their knowledge of the species at the same time. The higher the number of plant species found, the better the digital bee colony develops and new hives may be added. In this way, users can also be motivated to sow their own bee-friendly flowering meadows. In addition, they support the creation of local and regional flowering maps with the numerous plant photos. The game is supplemented by a wide range of information on the ecology of honey bees and wild bees, as well as on the basics of ecological relationships. An integrated quiz allows direct application of the new knowledge and consolidates what has been learned.
For more information, please visit the following website: https://beeactive.app/.
The app “beeactive” was developed by Porf. Tautz and Florian Schimpf and financed with funds from the Bayerische Sparkassenstiftung. It is available free of charge in the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.
