21 October 2025

Lev Horodyskyj

Founder

It’s been a busy number of months.  Our student interns continue developing Agavi while our Beeworks students finished their summer program and are now continuing as long-term volunteers with us.  Meanwhile, in California, David, Daniel, and Isael ran a successful version of the Greenworks program with some students from Hartnell College (and we linked them with our students in Brazil).  Beeworks has continued developing in Brazil with hives now delivered to Guapiruvu and the families learning how to cultivate native stingless bees.  I, meanwhile, did some on-location work in Indonesia and Ukraine in August and September, which yielded a large cohort of newly trained teachers, new projects launched, and new collaboration agreements signed.  Read more below!

Greenworks On-Location in Indonesia

In August, I traveled to Ternate to conduct a weeklong teacher development workshop where we covered active learning methodologies and practiced redesigning our courses to be more active.  Additionally, we brought in our international teacher partners from the US, Brazil, and Ukraine to talk about Greenworks in their own countries and how we can build future collaborations.  Overall, 30 teachers completed all the requirements of the workshop and received certificates.

Additionally, we visited the Khairun University campus on neighboring Halmahera Island to inaugurate Beeworks Indonesia, which we’ll be coordinating with Beeworks Brazil.  Just like the Brazilian project, students and professors from UNKHAIR will be working with local families to teach them how to raise native stingless bees and harvest honey.

Six Indonesian men and women and one Caucasian man in dark blue buttoned shirts with the Beeworks logo stitched in
An Indonesian man stands next to a table of stingless beehive boxes, pointing at them as he explains in front of a workshop sign in Indonesian. There is a seated audience in front of him.
A man in a dark blue Beeworks uniform handing a painted blue beehive box to a woman wearing a bright yellow hijab and bee net hat, surrounded by other women professors in the Beeworks uniform and hijabs
A black-and-white photo of a group of Indonesians in bee net hats standing around open boxes of stingless bees, with swarms of bees flying around them
A man in a bee net hat watches flying bees
A box on its side with layers of bee eggs hanging out, with tiny stingless bees flying around
A young Indonesian man in a bee net hat using a kitchen knife to pull balls of wax, pollen, and honey out of a beehive box on its side into a bowl
Indonesian men and women standing in a row in front of a sign that announces the Beeworks workshop in Indonesian
A group of Indonesian students and teachers watching as a teacher takes apart of a beehive box in the forest
A close up of a Science Voices patch on a uniform sleeve. In the background are students and teachers sitting on chairs amongst beehives while one male student leans backwards to get into the shot from off-frame

Finally in Indonesia, I visited a number of schools to talk science.  At Runy’s School (a grade school), I talked about stingless bees.  At SMA Negeri 1 Kota Ternate (a high school), I talked about scientific thinking and how to implement it in daily life.  At Khairun University I also gave the same talk on scientific thinking to university students in marine science and the teacher training program.

A man in checkered flannel draws a map of Brazil on a whiteboard in a classroom full of Indonesian children, with boys on the left and girls on the right
A man in checkered flannel shows a photo on his laptop to a group of boys in a classroom
A couple of boys are enthusiastically raising their hands as a man at the front of the classroom speaks
A man in checkered flannel leans down to listen to a small girl in a hijab ask a question as her fellow students and teachers look on
A man in checkered flannel standing in a classroom surrounded by happy children
A Caucasian man and an Indonesian man are chatting while a group of teenage girls in hijabs look on
A girl in a white hijab raising her hand to ask a question
An Indonesian man in a Beeworks uniform and a flat cap speaks into a microphone
A girl in a hijab flashes a peace sign as her fellow students listen intensely to a discussion
A teenage girl in a white hijab speaks into a microphone while her fellow students look on

Special thanks to Rama for the school and bee photography.  You can check out his work at @rama_sight for other excellent photography in Indonesia.

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Greenworks On-Location in Ukraine

Following Indonesia, I traveled to Lviv, Ukraine, to conduct the same workshop there.  Although dangerous (as the city came under attack by Russians on the third night), we have been working remotely since 2020 and we were overdue for some important in-person work.  We worked with 10 dedicated teachers from the geology departments of Lviv Polytechnic University and Ivan Franko National University of Lviv to develop expertise in active learning and using the Greenworks Project Design curriculum.  Additionally, we connected with colleagues in Brazil and Indonesia to discuss collaborations and future Greenworks projects.  All 10 teachers completed the certification process as well.

Seven Ukrainian men and women, extremely tired
A slide reading "Project/Mission Design Activity: Finish Your Science Traceability Matrix" is projected onto the wall of a windowless basement lab while teachers sit at desks
A group of Ukrainian teachers sitting behind small desks in a classroom with the image of an Indonesian man projected on the wall, who is speaking to the teachers
A group of Ukrainian students and teachers sitting in a classroom at desks chatting

After the workshop, Ihor and Andrii, co-leads of Greenworks in Ukraine, took me to current and future field sites for the Clean Rivers project.  We visited Kamianets-Podilskyi near the border with Moldova, where we connected with a geotourism lab at the Kamianets-Podilskyi National University and explored geotourism projects in the region (along with artists we met along the way).  Additionally, we visited a Ukrainian Cultural and Heritage Center in the nearby village of Velykyi Oleksandriv to better understand their approach towards cultural education and integrating geologic learning into that work (as nearby cliffs are important in local mythology and provide an excellent opportunity for geo-education).

A Polish castle with beige walls and a round red tower sits on a hillside with a sign to the right displaying geological information about the region
A sign about trilobites in Ukrainian stands next to a trail that leads up the hill to a castle at the top
A cliffside showing layered beige rocks laying on top of layered grey rocks, with a small sign at the base describing eurypterid sea scorpion fossils found in the formation
A sign showing the map of a geotourism hiking trail overlooks a river valley
A sign showing an ancient reef reconstruction of amminoid squids with pointy shells, crinoid sea lilies, and trilobites
Rows of blackened red pots with subtle designs on a windowsill overlooking a road and trees
A series of photographs of grey rock outcrops in a green forest laid out on a table with an embroidered tablecloth
A bowl of borsch in traditional pottery, with pampushy pastries, a sweet plum stew, shredded beets, and cheese curds
A gray building of two stories flying a Ukrainian flag with a small group of people standing at the entrance

We ended the field work in Bolekhiv and the Sukel’ River region, where we chatted with students at the Precarpathian Professional College of Forestry and Tourism about projects and extension work.  We also visited the villages along the Sukel’ River and chatted with the elders of the village to better understand the history of the region, their experiences with geotourism, and how geological research projects in the area can better work for them.

A two-story building with a brown first floor and a green second floor with two people standing at the entrance
A large room with many windows and plants and trees growing inside, with rearrangeable tables and chairs in the middle
Layered gray rocks slanting down into the ground near a river
Two older male professors on a green river bank near a small stream flowing past gray layered rocks angled down towards the river
Logs piled in front of a green building
Three Ukrainian men standing in front of a river flowing between trees
Forested hills with gray rocks in the foreground
A group of elderly women in colorful headscarves and Sunday clothing standing in front of an Eastern Rite Greco-Catholic church speaking with two older professors

During this visit, we signed 5-year Memoranda of Understanding with Lviv Polytechnic, the Geology and Geography Departments of Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, and Precarpathian College of Forestry and Tourism.  We are happy to welcome them to the Science Voices family and look forward to working together over the next half-decade.

Three men and a woman gathered around a table signing paperwork
Two men at a table signing paperwork
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Greenworks in Greenfield

Two panels, with the upper one showing two young Brazilian men and a middle-aged professor smiling, and the bottom panel showing two middle-aged teachers and three young women students

Our Greenworks program continues to grow with new experimental approaches.  This summer in July, our volunteers David and Daniel ran a version of Project Design with students they recruited from engineering and biology at Hartnell College in Salinas, California.  They were joined by students from engineering and geology at Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP) in Campinas, Brazil.

Over the course of a month, we worked together to help students think through the logistics of designing a technology project that helps alleviate a challenge in their community.  Additionally, the California students received some training in electronics and programming (while the UNICAMP students already had experience).

Overall the student planned out projects involving drones and robots and enjoyed the experience of interacting with their counterparts overseas.  We’re aiming to do a bigger version of the program next year, so stay tuned!

Beeworks Brazil Updates

Meanwhile in Brazil, Beeworks is continuing to develop.  Roberto and several bee-raising experts visited Guapiruvu in August to help install beehives at multiple locations throughout the community.  The beehives included the common jataí bees and bigger bugia bees.  We have an active WhatsApp group where the families regularly post updates on their hives, share pictures and videos to better understand their behaviors, and since it is spring and swarms are common as the bees forage for new living locations, trapping these swarms to relocate them to needed parts of the forest.  In the next few weeks, we’ll be visiting the project in-person, along with students and professors from UNICAMP.

A group of Brazilians standing near boxes full of bees in a rainforest
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YSP Graduates

And as always, we are grateful to our Young Scientist Program researchers through the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science whom we host every summer from June through August.  This year, João worked on Agavi while Sarah and Enrico worked on Beeworks.  You can check out their presentations below.  We’re happy that they’ll continue on as volunteers for the foreseeable future.  As always, great work!

Sarah and Enrico’s presentation on Beeworks

João’s presentation on Beeworks