Bio-education resource for universities

Thousands of Australian university students studying in the areas of biology and environment science are set to benefit from a teaching tool developed by the universities of Adelaide, Queensland and Sydney.

BioED is an interactive CD-ROM system that enables students to easily identify thousands of Australian animals, plants and micro-organisms.

Free copies of the CD-ROM, launched at Adelaide University, will be distributed to every university in Australia.

The BioED CD provides eight separate keys to groups including: protozoa; soil micro-arthropods (segmented invertebrates); insect orders; wasps; mosquitoes; microscopic fungi; weeds; and, urban pests.

"There has been a real need for an easy-to-use identification system in CD-ROM form for many years," says Associate Professor Andy Austin from Adelaide University's Centre for Evolutionary Biology & Biodiversity.

"The CD provides a resource for learning about various groups of organisms with text boxes and some video that provide information on structural characteristic, behaviour, ecology, etc."