Environmental Education Workshop for Teachers
Trip Start
Sep 26, 2005
1
23
Trip End
Jul 01, 2008
Asuncion, Paraguay
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
by Eric Roberts G 19 AFE
During a day and a half in the month of September 2007, 12 teachers and youth from Franco Isla and other surrounding communities participated in an environmental workshop titled Enseñanza de Ecologia en el Patio de las Escuelas (EEPE) (Teaching Ecology in the School Patio). The EEPE workshop was presented in my community by the Paraguayan non-governmental organization Guyra Paraguay, which is the Paraguayan division of BirdLife International. The EEPE workshop has three main objectives:
Capacitate teachers, youth, and/or other influential community members how to utilize the natural areas surrounding the areas or institutions (schools, vollyball courts, farm fields, soccer fields, etc.) that they frequent to learn about and teach others about the particular ecology of these areas. Apply the methodology of the EEPE workshop in the classroom to meet environmental education requirements specified by the Paraguayan government. Finally, to demonstrate to the participants the biological diversity of their frequented areas and to promote interest in the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources while emphasizing the important functions and benefits provided by different ecosystems.
The participants in the EEPE workshop in my community consisted of seven teachers of fifth or six grade, one kindergarten teacher, one president of an agricultural committee who is also a trained ecotourism guide, two youth who have been trained as ecotourism guides, one principal of a school, and one professor whose position is mainly administrative, but who acts as a substitute for absent teachers. In total, there were five women over the age of 25, one girl under the age of 18, five men over the age of 25, and one boy aged 18.
Since Guyra Paraguay's Environmental Education specialist Elizabeth Cabrera, a fluent speaker of both Guarani and Spanish, presented the workshop, my main role in the workshop was that of linking the community of Franco Isla to the resources already within existence in Paraguay. During the workshop, I assisted the groups of participants while they worked on their scientific experiments by answering their questions and by asking them questions to spur their thought process down the track of scientific inquiry, however, I did not actually present anything.
Although the majority of the participants were teachers, the practice of implementing the theory of scientific inquiry was new to them. During the workshop the participants were divided into three groups. Working in groups the participants were required to develop and conduct three scientific experiments that involved the natural environment.
At the end of the first day of the workshop, each group had completed one experiment. The first round of scientific experiments involved a good deal of assistance from Elizabeth, Coordinator Elizabeth, and myself. As is often the case when learning a great deal about one subject during the course of a full day, the participants went home extremely tired from the constant mental focusing and group participation. The next day however the participants returned eager to conduct new experiments. By the end of the second day, each group had completed and presented three experiments. We assisted the groups during the second round of scientific experiments, but to a much lesser extent than during the first round of experiments. The third round of group experiments was completely developed and executed by the groups without any assistance from the Elizabeth, coordinator Elizabeth, or myself.
The outcomes of workshops that I've been involved with in Paraguay always seem, at least in my point of view, to end with a big questions of 'Did they really learn anything?' or 'Will they actually implement the ideas that have been demonstrated to them?' This workshop, however, was different. Through my participation with the groups during the development of the group experiments, I was able to see the development of knowledge. It was honestly amazing to see how confused the participants were during the first round of experiments and then to see how confident the participants were during the third and final round of experiments. Knowledge was being deposited into their brains right before my eyes and they were becoming more confident with every new piece of knowledge they received and retained. For this reason, I consider the EPEE workshop a success.
The workshop has been a greater success than previously thought. Currently (two weeks after the EPEE workshop), as we are planning activities to complete during the weeks leading up to the Gran Festival de Aves (The Grand Bird Festival), the teachers that participated in the workshop are developing, with a bit of enthusiastic urging on my behalf (motivating host country nationals to try something new is a large part of any Volunteers service), scientific experiments involving bird observation to be executed by their students. Of course, the next step is to get the teachers to instruct the students how to develop their own scientific experiments by using the EPEE workshop activities as their own teaching tools.
