When Robotics Dresses Up as Biodiversity: Roversa and Sin feos no hay paraíso

In a world shaped by climate change, environmental pollution, and the accelerated loss of biodiversity, it is increasingly urgent to rethink how new generations relate to nature. The silent decline of species and ecosystems not only disrupts environmental balance but also affects food security, human health, and climate regulation. Moreover, it weakens the cultural and emotional bonds that connect people to their surroundings, particularly in urban contexts where biodiversity is often perceived as distant or disconnected from everyday life.

In megadiverse countries like Colombia, this disconnection poses a particularly significant challenge. Despite the country’s extraordinary natural wealth, many local species remain invisible or stigmatized within the social imagination, limiting their appreciation and protection from an early age. In this context, education becomes a key tool for bringing biodiversity closer to children’s daily experiences through creative, place-based, and meaningful approaches.
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It is at this intersection of biodiversity, education, and territory that a transmedia project called Sin feos no hay paraíso (“Without the ‘ugly ones’ there is no paradise”) emerges, led by Fundación La Mecedora de Darwin, a Barranquilla-based science communication foundation with a strong territorial focus. The initiative is implemented in public schools across Barranquilla with the goal of transforming perceptions of stigmatized native fauna and promoting their recognition as essential components of urban and peri-urban ecosystems.

The project integrates multiple pedagogical strategies, including educational videos grouped under the concept “Los feos la vacilan”, a coloring book titled “La liga de los feos”, co-created with the participation of 15 regional artists who generously donated their artwork, and a set of in-person workshops centered on local biodiversity. Through these resources, the goal is that children become familiar with native species, understand their ecological roles, and question the negative ideas often associated with them, fostering a more empathetic and meaningful relationship with the fauna of their territory.

The project’s first implementation took place at IED Las Flores, a public school located in the Las Flores neighborhood of Barranquilla, an area surrounded by ecosystems such as the Caribbean beach, the Magdalena river (the main river in Colombia), and a wetland called Cienaga Mallorquin. 

This close and everyday relationship with diverse natural environments created an especially favorable context for the pedagogical experience, as many of the children already recognized the species being discussed as part of their immediate surroundings. This prior familiarity resulted in strong engagement and enthusiastic participation throughout the workshops.

The activities included bodily, artistic, and narrative exercises: children acted like animals, drew them, and reflected collectively on their ecological importance. The experience was then enriched through the incorporation of Roversa, an educational robotics platform designed by the Global Center for Equitable Computer Science Education and Roversa Robotics, to strengthen learning in computing and STEM through accessible, playful, and hands-on experiences.

For this workshop, the Roversa robots were dressed up with costumes representing three stigmatized animals: a black vulture, an opossum, and a caiman. These ‘animals’ were then placed in scenarios that represented the ecosystems where these species provide key ecosystem services. In the first phase, children familiarized themselves with how the robot worked; once comfortable, they began solving challenges linked to the ecological roles of each animal. The activity concluded with a friendly competition among the groups, aiming to complete the circuit using the fewest movements and the shortest time possible, integrating computational thinking, teamwork, and environmental education.

This experience demonstrates that educational robotics can go far beyond technical learning and become a powerful tool for environmental education. For teachers and educational institutions, Sin feos no hay paraíso offers a replicable model that combines transmedia storytelling, hands-on activities, and accessible technology, showing that it is possible to teach computing while simultaneously strengthening emotional and cognitive connections to local biodiversity. In this encounter between robots, territory, and “not-so-charismatic” fauna, new ways of learning, caring, and inhabiting the world begin to emerge.