Friday, March 11, 2016

Kat: Teaching biodiversity and pollinization in Costa Rica


Today we got to go back to elementary school! We spent the morning meeting with the school board of the local elementary school.  The school board is made up of annually elected parents who want to help the school raise money for extracurricular activities.  The elementary school in Pacayitas only gets $8,000 a year for supplies, repairs, and other school-related costs!  Because of this, the school board is needed to help supplement other activities for the students.  It amazes me that they can operate on such a small budget, especially when I think about how much it costs to operate American schools.  Seeing parents dedicated to helping out their local school is inspiring and really shows how involved the community is.


After yet another delicious lunch with our host families, we prepared to teach 1st-5th grade students about biodiversity and pollination.  I have taught to non-English speakers in the past, but I forgot how difficult it was to communicate through a language barrier.  Luckily, we had Paige and Alex to translate for us if we needed it (and I needed it a lot)!  The group teaching biodiversity used a mural at the school to show just how many animals can be in one small place.  Just looking around, it is amazing how many different plants and flowers there are.  There is never a silent moment, and the constant bird and insect sounds are a stark contrast to the silent winter we left behind in Pennsylvania.


In order to teach the importance of every living thing, we built a web of life between the students, representing how all living things are connected.  Certain students let go of their string, showing how the loss of just one organism affects the entire ecosystem.  After, we played Trophic Tag with the students to really show how all animals are connected, no matter what they eat!  We had a quick snack break and gave everybody ants on a log (celery, peanut butter, and ants) as a biodiversity snack.  They were unsure about it, but I was proud of them for at least trying something they've probably never had before!
Pollination was next, and we even got to teach the students some English words for common Costa Rican pollinators!  Pollinators are actually really important, and they help us produce most of our fruits, vegetables, and seeds.  We used a poster with sixteen different foods, three of which did not need pollinators to produce food, and had the students guess which three those were.  The most fun part of that activity was asking the students if we needed pollinators to produce shirts, houses, and hamburgers(spoiler alert: we do).

Then we brought the kids out to the field to run around a little bit.  First we had a relay to exemplify how pollination happens, and our cotton ball pollen got everywhere!  We used Starbursts as nectar and when Gretchen offered the extra candy, she disappeared in a sea of children.  After, we had a mini dance party and taught the kids how to communicate nectar location via the Bee Dance.  Of course, the boys were the most vocal about not wanting the dance but were the first to wiggle their butts in the direction of the flower they hid.  It was so much fun to see them all get so into learning about the environment.  Outdoor education is so important to me because it makes learning fun.  I think we all were amazed at how much fun we, as teachers, had with the kids.  I really hope we've had a positive impact and taught these kids how to live the environment!

No comments:

Post a Comment