Elementary education teachers have been one of the main allies of the Conservation Education Program. Therefore, to strengthen ties in the communities and facilitate training, the teachers work with environmental promoters to receive firsthand support integrating environmental education in their curricula.
“We believe the teacher is an agent of change, which is why we focus our efforts on working with them,” said Lizz González, Program Coordinator. With the materials and support of the promoters, the teachers can adapt and contextualize the information to use it in the classroom, since the content is based in the competencies and fields of study of Agreement 592 of the Ministry of Public Education.
In addition to developing training activities, the promoters provide the teachers tools from the environmental chests, which contain educational material like the recently published Guide to Shorebirds and Wetlands: Strategies for teaching their conservation, in which the exercises and examples illustrate communities near the wetlands and allow the participant to develop processes that use metaphors to elicit reflexion about the environment.
“Conservation of natural resources through environmental education tools supported by the promoters is a way to strengthen ties, which can transmit knowledge, and once we take actions that involve us all, we start to see a change in our community, moving from knowledge to action,” explained Lizz González.
So far, two groups of environmental promoters are rolling out activities in Bahía Tóbari and the Gulf of Santa Clara in Sonora, with 12 and 10 members, respectively. Each has the support of a bird expert, since a bird observation field trip is conducted as part of the project.
The program plans to form groups of promoters close to each of the wetlands in which Pronatura Noroeste works. Activities will begin soon. In Huizache Caimanera, Bahía Santa María and Ensenada de Pabellones in Sinaloa; Yavaros, Sonora; Laguna San Ignacio and Guerrero Negro in the Baja California peninsula.
If you are interested in having a promoter visit your school, would like to use the material from the chest, or want to form a group of environmental promoters, please contact us by email at lgonzalez@pronatura-noroeste.org or call 636 175 34 61 ext. 102. You can also view the Guide to Shorebirds and Wetlands: Strategies for Teaching their Conservation here.
