​Evolution in Action

Our aim is to promote understanding of evolution, its timescales and how humans impact ecological and evolutionary processes. This will guarantee that people of all ages understand how biological interactions shape and maintain biodiversity and how human actions currently threaten it. We want ensure easy access to this information in form on teaching materials and workshops, and promote active participation in maintaining biodiversity.

How do we work?

Evolution in Action is developed together with ecologists, evolutionary biologists and art educators. We combine science, art-based methods, action-based teaching, games and storytelling to ensure learning about biodiversity and evolutionary processes. The material links with the new Finnish Science curriculum and phenomena based education. We create freely available, teaching materials (under the terms of CreativeCommons-licence) to equip educators to teach evolutionary processes. You can read more about our team here.

Below you can watch a short introduction about our work:

Our goals are:  

*  To increase knowledge about species interaction and how do they shape organisms evolution.  Where does the biodiversity in nature - that is now a lot spoken about - come from?

*  To increase understanding of evolution being an active process that is happening now, not only something that happened in the past. Organisms (including humans) are developing in interaction with each other, also at the present moment.

*  To demonstrate how and why understanding and researching evolutionary theory is important in understanding climate change and the loss of organisms habitats. The slowness of evolutionary processess is the reason why many species cannot adapt to the rapidly changing climate caused by human action, and to the loss of their habitats, but get eventually extinct.

*  To demonstrate how scientific information is produced and its different stages, and increase knowledge in the evolution biology research made in Finland, and its significance.

*  To offer art based methods for the participants to process and deepen their relationship to the nature and natural phenomena, and to work with the emotions related to challenging environmental questions, such as climate change and human impact on ecosystem.

*  To encourage participants to act for the sustainable future and to strengthen an empathetic, respectful relationship to all forms of life.

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Our team:

Carita Lindstedt-Kareksela is a team-leader and one of the original founders of the project. She is currently an Associate Professor in forest entomology  at the University of Helsinki (Forest Sciences). Her research group aims to understand the role of natural selection in shaping the adaptive genetic and phenotypic variation in cooperative antipredator strategies and how ecological and social conditions shape the evolution of antipredator strategies and animal signalling. She uses a combination of behavioural, physiological, quantitative genetic and functional ecological techniques both in the field and in the laboratory.

carita.lindstedt-kareksela(at)helsinki.fi
http://www.caritalindstedt.com/

Elli Liimatainen is a teacher of biology and geography (MSc). She began as an Evolution workshop´s project coordinator in summer 2022. Previously Elli has worked with combining Science and Art based methods, so contemporary experimental learning and science education are close to her heart. Elli's responsibilities are coordination of the project, contacting teachers and educators, doing school visits & workshops, developing learning materials, communication and making social media content.

elli.v.liimatainen(at)jyu.fi

Michaela Casková is visual artist, designer, illustrator and educator. She received a Master’s degree in Fine Arts in 2012 and a Master’s degree in Art Education in 2014. Since 2013, she has been an active member of the Mustarinda Association, contributing to projects focused on sustainable values and lifestyles, ecological and cultural diversity, and intersections between art, science, and critical research. As a member of the education team of Mustarinda (together with Tiina Arjukka Hirvonen) she collaborated on the Children's Forest Pavilion representing Lithuania at Biennale Architettura di Venezia in Venice. In 2019, Michaela joined the Evolution in Action team, where she works across visual development, coordination, and curatorial processes. She is responsible for shaping the project’s visual identity, illustrations, animations, and digital platforms, and contributes to the production of exhibitions and public events. Her work also includes developing art-based educational content and designing materials and games.

eseleim(at)seznam.cz
www.naposedu.cz 

Tiina Arjukka Hirvonen is an art educator, artist and environmental educator, interested in environmental topics and encounters across species. As art pedagogue she is interested in playfulness and mixing different disciplines.
Tiina has graduated as MA in Art Education in Aalto University, earlier as Bachelor of Fine Arts and studied Dance  & Somatic practices. She is an active member of Mustarinda association, working with projects combining art, science and ecological and cultural diversity.
Tiina joined the Evolution in Action team in 2019,  her role has been introducing and developing art-based methods and content to the project, curatorial processes, developing teaching materials and facilitating workshops. She also works with project's communication, coordination and production of exhibitions and public events.
 
tiina.arjukka(at)proton.me
https://linktr.ee/tiina.arjukka

Aigi Margus is one of the founding members of the project and currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Jyväskylä, where she studies evolutionary processes in human-altered environments. In her current research, she focuses on the role of adenosine methylation in bacterial antibiotic resistance. Before that, she has worked in the Invasion Biology Research Group, investigating how different pesticides (i.e., insecticides, fungicides and herbicides) affect the invasion success of the Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata), a major agricultural pest. Her research combines laboratory experiments, genomic and molecular analyses, and studies of life-history traits, physiology and behavior, to understand how different chemical stressors drive evolutionary change. 

aigi.margus(at)jyu.fi
www.aigi.ee

Team alumni:

Anu Käppi is a biologist (Master of Science), and she is
interested in biodiversity, especially vascular plants. She joined the Evolution in Action team in spring 2020 and she worked as a project coordinator in the years 2020-2022. She produced materials for teachers and families together with other members of the team and she worked as a workshop instructor. Anu works as a coordinator in the Jyväskylä University Museum nowadays (FIRI project).

anu.m.kappi(at)jyu.fi

Emily Burdfield-Steel is an Assistant Professor in the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics at the University of Amsterdam. Her research investigates how intra- and inter-specific species communication, particularly chemical communication, shapes evolutionary processes. She focuses on insect sexual communication, and predator-prey interactions - looking at how the use of multiple sensory modalities can influence the evolution of communication, and how human impacts on the environment can disrupt these interactions. Emily is one of the founders of EIA project dated back to 2016. Her focus was on allowing schools that were not situated near universities to still have access to these activities, as well as providing opportunities for foreign researchers to take part in outreach. 

e.r.burdfieldsteel(at)uva.nl

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We are funded by:

The Evolution in Action project was founded in 2017 by a group of scientists in the Department of Biological and Environmental Science at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. We have been funded by an ESEB Outreach Initiative grants, Tieteen tiedotus ry and Kone Foundation. In 2019 we started collaborating with artists and art educators, and are currently working on workshops combining art and science supported by Kone Foundation grant 2020-2024. 2025-2026 we work as part of MUUMAA project, which is supported by Kone Foundation Metsän puolella grant.