Assignments

To successfully complete the course and receive academic credits, participants must submit all pre-course, onsite, and post-course assignments.

Course Assignments

1. Pre-Course Assignments

  • Introduction Video

    • Due Date: Sunday, 5 July 2026.

    Submit Video

  • Short Essay (1,000–2,000 words)

      • Tropical Biodiversity in a Changing Climate.
      • Drone Mapping and GIS for Biodiversity Conservation and Management.
      • Sequencing Technology for Biodiversity Conservation and Management.
      • Science Communication / Data to Policy and Practices in Tropical Biodiversity and Sustainable Development.
    • Due Date: Friday, 10 July 2026. Monday, 13 July 2026.

    Submit Essay

2. Course Preparation and Reading Materials

3. Hybrid Session Quizzes

  • Quiz
      1. How are the biodiversity in South East Asia differs to other part of the world?
      2. What are the considerations in designing study design, sampling, and metadata in biodiversity research?
      3. Using iNaturalist, take a look at the biodiversity in your home area and compare it to the biodiversity in Yogyakarta. Does it differs or there are similarities?
      1. Explain where most carbon is stored in mangrove ecosystems (above- vs. below-ground), why their sediments retain carbon long-term, and how land-use change reverses this storage.
      2. What are the FAIR data principles and why are they important in bioinformatics research?
      3. Prof. Alice Hughes highlighted several challenges for biodiversity conservation in Indonesia, including data gaps, weak law enforcement, and difficulties in exporting samples. Based on her lecture, what are the key priorities for improving conservation outcomes in Indonesia, and why does she argue that conserving biodiversity should be viewed as an “investment”?
      1. Prof. Prama emphasized that remote sensing and machine learning are not “perfect tools” that can solve everything on their own. Describe the map validation process used by his team, and explain why involving local stakeholders (such as provincial government officials and regional universities) is critical to the success of the Indonesian Blue Carbon coastal mapping initiative.
      2. After listening to Dr. Bird’s overview of the many different sequencing projects happening at the Oxford Nanopore Technologies Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Southeast Asia, what do you think is the real impact of sequencing for conserving and managing regional biodiversity? What do you think is the main hurdle and bottlenecks?
      3. Pang has demonstrated how you can utilize metabarcode sequencing to look at microbiome diversity using markers such as 16s rRNA gene. If you want to look at the diversity of plants, fungi, or animals, which markers should you use instead? Can you utilize the same pipeline as shown in the practical? If not, what should be changed?

4. Onsite Practicum & Group Works

  • Tasks:
    • Field Data & Lab Notebooks: Documentation of coordinates, ecological data, and lab notes during the field trip and wet lab sessions.
    • The Six Thinking Hats: You will work in groups to dissect and criticize the Indonesian Biodiversity and Action Plan 2025 - 2045.
    • Student Biodiversity Summit Focus Group Discussion: You will be joining the summit participants to discuss, debate, and propose ideas and innovations in one the four essay topics. Representatives from each topics will be asked to present the summary results of each session at the stage.

5. Post-Course Assignment

  • Tasks:
    • GitHub Pages Portfolio: Create an online project report or analytical portfolio summarizing the methodologies, maps, genomic trees, and/or conservation policy briefs developed during the course.