Banded mongoose foraging for invertebrates

Our group is looking at the health of mammals that can in association with human communities and  across protected areas, linking populations across the landscape. Our work is aimed at understanding how microorganisms are shared between humans and animals and the role of surface water in this process.

This week in class, our Club began to learn about insects and their importance in wetlands landscapes! After going over the basic characteristics of insects, including similar features and body parts, we focused on bees. Most of the children recognize that bees are important because they make honey, which humans can sell and is a tasty treat but one of the goals of the lesson was to demonstrate how important bees are to agricultural communities and ecosystems in general. Because of the large role they play in pollinating farmers’ crops, it is important to help protect beehives and treat the insects with respect instead of trying to remove them or seeing them as a threat when they are in nature.

The lesson began with the students learning about the life cycles and social structures of bees, along with what bees eat and how they make honey. The children also learned that it is important to limit the amount of pesticides and fertilizers on plants because the chemicals can hurt the bees as they fly from plant to plant and are exposed to them.

After the lesson, the children went outside to play a game based on the activities of worker bees and their interactions with each other. A combination of Hide and Seek and Tag, this game required the students to break up into three groups, two hives and one group of “flowers”. The “flowers” were given strips of paper to represent nectar and then ran to hide from the “bees”. One student from each hive was elected as the “queen bee” and in charge of the hive and the “worker bees”. The “worker bees” were responsible for collecting nectar from the “flowers” and returning it to the hive. When the students found a new group of flowers they were supposed to do a special dance to indicate to their fellow “bees” that they had found nectar. At the end of the game, the hive with the most nectar won. The kids loved this game, some were even buzzing out loud as they ran around finding “flowers”!

Next week we will continue to learn about insects - butterflies!

Ecosystem health reflects the balance and integrity of the components! 

NSF Coupled Systems Project Education Program- CARACAL partnership

The Conservation Club under CARACAL is off to a great start this school year! The Conservation Club meets at both Kasane and Kazungula Primary Schools once a week after school is done for the day to learn about the importance of protecting the amazing and unique environment they live in. Our year long, NSF - WildiZe-funded curriculum seeks to educate the students in the Chobe district about environmental problems in their own communities, as well as relate world wide problems to them. The curriculum covers topics like climate change, endangered species, overfishing, and, most importantly, the protection and conservation of our greatest natural resource, water. Both Kazungula and Kasane are located right next to the Chobe River and many people make a living off of this waterway, whether it be from fishing or tourism. Therefore it is of vital importance to teach every generation the best ways to live sustainably next to such an importance resource so that these communities will be able to maintain their livelihoods for years to come.

            Our first lesson was last week and after a brief introduction about CARACAL and the goals of the class, the students were asked about what they thought were signs of a healthy environment versus signs of an unhealthy environment. After talking about some examples, the whole club went for a walk around the school and the surrounding area to look for some of these examples. The goal of this lesson was to help the children understand that when they see healthy animals and growing plants as well as clean water, they will know that the ecosystem is healthy. However, the children were also asked to look for signs of an unhealthy environment, and at both schools the main problem was litter. When the students were asked what they could do to make their environment more healthy, all of them suggested to pick up the litter. Our nature walk ended up doubling as a trash clean up and the schoolyards looked much better after our hard work!

            At Kazungula, the club spotted another sign of an unhealthy environment besides the trash, a leaking sewer pipe. While to the casual observer, this leak would just look like a normal puddle next to the road, the children recognized that this water was coming from a sewer pipe. This was a great example for the kids to find because it showed them that not everything is as it appears in the environment and although they might first think that the ecosystem is healthy, sometimes it is necessary to take a closer look to discover the problem.

After this introductory lesson, the curriculum will be focusing on several different animals that can be found in Chobe that are misunderstood or that the children don’t know too much about, such as spiders, snakes, crocodiles, and bees, and their importance to the environment. Many of these animals are considered dangerous but there is no one to explain to the children what actually classifies these animals as a threat. For example, since they have been taught that all snakes are dangerous, many of the children will throw stones at a snake in self-defense if they see one, when in reality the snake is trying to avoid humans and has no intention of harming anyone. By educating the students about the habits and lifestyles of these misunderstood animals, people will feel less threatened by the wildlife they share their environment with. Since all of these animals need water to survive, although some rely on it more than others, like the crocodile, these lessons will be able to incorporate the main theme of the curriculum, protecting and conserving clean water, into each class.

We’re looking forward to an exciting first quarter full of games and field trips to help the children learn in a hands on way about the amazing things in their environment!