The PEF’s Education Program

The PEF has an educational program called the “Eskwelahan Para sa Kalibasan” (EPK), or “School for Nature” program. They have developed one workbook for each of grades 2-5 that deals with the rain forest. The teachers can integrate the workbook into several different topics besides science, such as English (the book is in English), math, or social studies. The idea is to incorporate environmental ideas into different parts of the curriculum, to help to establish both literacy and personal commitment in the local environment. By starting young, the hope is to change attitudes so that when the children grow older, they will protect their forests and the inhabitants.

Infanta has a particular interest in this, as well as in obtaining protection for the forest above their town. In 2004, heavy rains coupled with logging and geologically unstable ground caused a major mud flood that flowed down the river and buried much of the town. They had a lot of help cleaning up, so you can’t tell that it was buried, but the memory is still strong and not surprisingly they would rather not have a repeat. Having the PEF work to establish the forest in the mountains as protected for the Philippine Eagle is in their interest, and so is having their children learn to protect the environment. The fact that even the mayor came to the workshop to welcome us is telling. There is still logging (legal) planned in the forests, even though the poor geology makes it likely that a landslide would happen again.

The workshop itself seemed to go quite well. There were several presentations by the staff (we were joined by a professor from the Univ. of the Philippines at Los Banos, Dr. Lettie Afuang), and the teachers spent two days learning how to use the materials, developing their own lesson plans and generally being trained. The general lesson plans were developed by teachers, and PEF ahs research showing that the kids actually learn the material, which is really great.

I gave a lecture on biodiversity. I’m not sure how much they got out of it because unlike the rest of the workshop, I gave mine totally in English. I think their understanding of English is probably decent, but their ability to speak was in some cases pretty weak. In any case, I tried to simplify the English, and everyone had good comments about my presentation. A funny thing that happened in the middle of my talk was that there was a tremendous downpour. The roof of the veranda is made of corrugated metal and palm thatch, so such a huge downpour was so noisy that I had to just stop the talk until it stopped raining! It sounded like a tremendous roar of applause.
Grieson giving his workshop--note that openness of the veranda and the little picnic huts in the background.




This is Jayson lecturing on the "Haring-Ibon", or "King Bird"--the Philippine Eagle.