Exploring biodiversity with Nexus Island ESA Extension

What is Nexus Island?

The word “nexus” means connection, and that reflects the core message of this educational game: everything in an ecosystem is interconnected. Nexus Island draws special attention to our ecosystems’ biodiversity and invites students to rethink their perception of the environment we live in. By examining the interaction between living organisms, non-living environmental factors and humans, alongside their adaptation strategies, Nexus Island offers educators a powerful, interdisciplinary tool to explore biology and environmental science.

Though storytelling, collaborative gameplay, and critical thinking, Nexus Island transforms science learning into an engaging, immersive experience. At a time when hands-on, inquiry-based science education is essential, this resource helps bring science vividly to life in classrooms and in non-formal settings such as museums and science centres.

The new ESA Extension of Nexus Island

The ESA Extension to the initial Nexus Island resource is designed to support inquiry-based learning and data-driven decision-making. Students work with real data, from in-situ measurements and then validated through Earth Observation data provided by the ESA satellites.

With the Nexus Island ESA Extension, students are introduced to Earth Observation satellites, and how they monitor different ecosystems, providing essential information on their health and biodiversity. They will also understand the relevance of the European Union's Earth Observation Copernicus Programme in monitoring our planet and its environment, with the aim of benefiting all European citizens.

Inspired by a real science mission

Nexus Island and the ESA Extension draw inspiration from the real-life TREC mission (TRaversing European Coastlines). TREC is a European scientific expedition led by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) with ESA’s contribution. In particular, ESA has funded a research project about costal biodiversity (HyperBoost). TREC mission aims to investigate the health of coastal ecosystems by collecting data on pollution, biodiversity, and climate effects across Europe’s shorelines.

Nexus Island mirrors TREC approach by placing students in the shoes of scientists conducting fieldwork. Through exploration and data-driven decision-making, learners gain insight into how ecosystems function and how scientific research contributes to environmental understanding and action.

Let’s play with Nexus Island and the ESA Extension

The game-based approach shines a spotlight on biodiversity, focusing on how microorganisms are vulnerable to the dynamics of a changing environment.

Participants take on the role of scientific explorers, navigating through four distinct quadrants of the Nexus Island—Nature, City, Agriculture, and Industry—each representing different habitats with varying levels of human impact. As they uncover the organisms living in each environment, students examine ecological relationships, adaptation strategies, and the impact of human activity. With the ESA Extension, students will investigate how satellite data contribute to analysing, researching and mitigating the effects of natural and man-made events on Nexus Island.

Learning at Nexus Island

Working with Nexus Island, teachers and educators can inspire curiosity, deepen understanding, build scientific literacy and activate practical skills in their students. Nexus Island presents science not just as a school topic, but as a process people can use to make an impact on the world providing solutions to real-world environmental issues. 

Nexus Island materials are available below:

• Formal settings.
• Non-formal settings.