• • Brazil Expert Teaching Team
• • Vietnam Expert Teaching Team
• • activities in East Africa

• First workshop of the Brazil ETT
• Second workshop of the Brazil ETT
• PFOA workshop

Second workshop of the Brazil Expert Teaching Team:
Teaching Tools for the Brazil ETT

The GMO ERA Project and the Brazil steering committee of the project held the second Expert Teaching Team (ETT) workshop in Brazil. The workshop took place in Campinas from 5-9 February 2007. During the first Brazil ETT workshop in June 2006, participants prepared draft teaching materials for teaching the project approach for environmental risk assessment. This second Brazil ETT workshop brought valuable new members to the team, and resulted in further refinement of the teaching tools in the non-target and biodiversity effects and gene flow and consequences sections.

The Brazil steering committee of the GMO ERA Project organized the workshop, led by Deise Capalbo at Embrapa Environment and Eliana Fontes and team at Embrapa Genetic Resources and Biotechnology. The participants consisted of experts from universities, Embrapa Research Centers, and other research centers and organizations (including CIRAD). The project coordinators and the director of the BiosafeTrain Project served as resource persons. The workshop brought together most of the original ETT members from the non-target and gene flow sections at the first workshop, and integrated nine new ETT members into the team.

Program
The first day included presentations that gave important background to the teaching materials, such as introductions to the international and Brazilian legislation and regulation on biosafety, and an introduction to environmental risk assessment. The next few days of the workshop were devoted to presenting the teaching tools, session by session, and discussing how to improve the materials. Once complete, the teaching tools, which include course outlines, presentations with illustrations, navigational aids, small group exercises and key references, will undergo expert review.
Participants evaluated the workshop as being overall successful in achieving the goals of producing teaching tools and bringing together a core group for an ETT in Brazil. In the evaluations, participants noted that they were particularly pleased with the team dynamic at the workshop.

Future of the ETT
The ETT consists of highly competent researchers and teachers who are capable of teaching advanced courses on environmental risk assessment of GM crops. Using the teaching materials developed in the workshops, this team of experts will be prepared of teach courses for research scientists, graduate students, and regulators with a science background. The ETT has already begun validating the teaching tools by giving a week-long graduate level course at University of Viçosa, Brazil in October 2006.

Thanks to all the participants!

The workshop was funded by the SDC, CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior), and CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico).