Creating a digital learning ecosystem to facilitate authentic place-based learning and international collaboration – a coastal case study

Authentic, place-based experiential learning is essential for students of ecology, whilst an understanding of broader human impacts is necessary for effective conservation efforts. Creating future environmental leaders requires fostering such understanding whilst building transferable skills in collaboration, communication and cultural competence. Mobile technologies and collaborative digital tools can connect students across broad geographic locations, allowing them to share experiences and build a common understanding of global environmental challenges. Within this concise paper, we report on the initial stages and proposed next steps in building a learning ecosystem, consisting of a digital platform and embedded tools, to facilitate undergraduate learning in coastal ecology across universities in Australia, Hong Kong and South Africa. Using here a framework guided by design-based research (DBR), we discuss the design and development of these digital tools in context, and their proposed integration into upper undergraduate science curricula across locations.