Educational TV show focuses on biodiversity
WE often ask ourselves and our friends, “How are you?” It is a question one might as well ask Nature. The fourth season of the art and science series Mind S-Cool highlights how problems affecting nature also affect the way humans live.
Mind S-Cool TV is a project of the Bonifacio Arts Foundation, Inc. (BAFI), the nonprofit behind the Mind Museum and BGC Art Center.
After attracting 2.2 million viewers to the series’ third season, the show’s latest season will educate the viewers on “biodiversititis.”
Episode one is where they introduce the term “biodiversititis” or the “Big B” — a term coined by the show to refer to the effects of biodiversity crisis on human health.
“For Season 4, we confront the very real conditions in our local biodiversity that are clearly affecting our health,” Mind S-Cool director and executive producer Mitzi Borromeo said at the show’s launch on June 8 at the Mind Museum in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.
“The message is ‘I am OK only if biodiversity is OK,’” said the show’s lead writer and BAFI managing director and curator Maria Isabel Garcia in a video message.
The six-episode series will also welcome guest experts Dr. Aldrin Mallari and Rina Rosales, both biodiversity conservation practitioners, who will tell the viewers stories of Philippine biodiversity and explain how many lives in nature are tied to ours.
The fourth season’s final 2 episodes are meant to help empower viewers discover that the treatments for what ails Philippine biodiversity are within reach.
The show’s fourth season was created by an all-Filipino team of creatives in partnership with the Sustainable Interventions for Biodiversity, Oceans, and Landscapes (SIBOL) Activity of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Dr. Aldrin Mallari said that in the 1990s, the lack of awareness about the problems in Philippine biodiversity resulted in there being no public and community involvement.
“But now, it is an age where we are living in an overly communicated world,” Mr. Mallari said, so people are better informed. “However, the level of engagement remains low.”
He noted that the concepts in biodiversity tend to be limited to those who understand the jargon. He said that explaining concepts in an educational TV show makes the conversation more reachable and understandable.
With this new season of Mind S-Cool, SIBOL aims to focus on the need for environmental conservation in oceans and landscapes, facilitating a deeper understanding with a wider audience.
Mind S-Cool TV Season 4 premieres on Cignal TV’s ONE PH Ch.1 on June 26 at 11 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. The show can also be streamed on the Mind S-Cool YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/c/MindSCoolPh). For more information, visit www.facebook.com/mindscoolph/. — Michelle Anne P. Soliman
