Environmental Education

PRIMARY SCHOOL

FORS has been involved in environmental education in the communities around Ruaha National Park since 1999. Currently, FORS is working with nine primary schools in the Idodi Division, including Msembe Primary School at park headquarters. By weaving FORS' 'greenlines" (gender, wildlife, culture and environment, engaged learning, land use) through the national curriculum requirements, each school participates in teacher training sessions and follow-up feedback sessions as they implement lessons around the topics of water, weather, wildlife, soil/forests/fire.

In addition to environmental education, the schools are involved in many other educational activities through FORS.

Click on the following link to view some FORS' lesson plans.
Lesson Plans Sample

Students of Idodi Primary School

Students of Mlowa collect water for their tree nursery

Cultural Exchange

FORS has created partnerships with schools in America. These partnerships create valuable cultural exchange for the students of Tanzania and America.
View some pictures of the cultural exchange

World Environmental Day

Each year on 5 June, the schools participate in a celebration of World Environmental Day. All schools come together to demonstrate their talents, which included acting, dancing, singing, and sports. The performances always have an environmental theme. At the end of the day, awards are received for the sports competition, drawing competition, and best school environment.
View some pictures of this celebration

Visits to Ruaha National Park

Before beginning the wildlife topic in the environmental education curriculum, FORS took the teachers on a visit to Ruaha National Park on an educational safari. They were taught all about the wildlife of Ruaha and about TANAPA (Tanzania National Parks) so that they would be more knowledgeable while teaching.
Current funding for this activity comes from the Waterloo Foundation, allowing all teachers as well as all Standard two and six students to go on an excursion into the Park in 2007. This educational trip was to supplement the knowledge they gained from the classroom and to act as a more participatory form of learning.
View some pictures of the trips

Environmental Story Board Event (SBE)

The standard six students participate each year in a drawing competition based upon a chosen environmental topic. This year's drawing competition has evolved into a storybook. The students chose a local indeginous story that related to the environment, which were gathered from the elders of the village. In groups, they depicted the story and drew pictures pertaining to it.
View some pictures

World Water Week

During the World Water Week, every school put together outreach activities in the villages. Some schools marched through the village holding banners with messages about the importance of water, others sang songs about water while marching through the village, others cleaned the taps or the water sources in their village. Another school took their standard six class on a field trip to visit the intake area for their local village taps. Makifu village even held a village wide celebration, in which the chairperson of the village was the guest of honor and spoke of the importance of water to the villagers. Amongst all these activities, FORS hired a film van to show the "Maji ni Uhai" (Water is Life) video to the schools in the morning, and a video about the Great Ruaha River for the villagers in the evening. The "Maji ni Uhai" film was filmed by Brock Initiative in the villages of Idodi Division. Therefore, it was a huge success for the students to see themselves, and places they are familiar with in the film.

Nyamahana Primary School Students hold signs reminding
the villagers that water is life and without water, there is no
life, which is the theme for this year's World Water Day.

Nyamahana Primary School Students clean the areas
around thier water sources during World Water Week.

COMMUNITY EDUCATION
FORS is always searching for more ways of including the community in its environmental education. The problems that affect Ruaha National Park often originate outside of the park boundaries, in the villages. 

The villages of Idodi Division are all located within the government Game Controlled Area of Lunda Mkwambi also commonly known as the Wildlife Management Area (WMA). This WMA is managed by  Mbomipa Association, the local community wildlife management association. Mbomipa has local scouts in all the villages who are responsible for managing the WMA.

Unfortunately, many of these scouts have only a standard 7 education. In order for them to effectively and effeciently do thier job for Mbomipa and thus protect the Ruaha ecosystem, further education in natural resource management would be very helpful. 

Scout Training: Friends of Ruaha continues to help MBOMIPA, the village association now managing one of Tanzania's first Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) along the border of Ruaha National Park, to train their game scouts. By the end of 2007, FORS with support from the Rufford Foundation will have sent 25 young men to Likuyu Sekemaganga for a course in Community Based Conservation.

Radio Outreach: Friends of Ruaha is teaming with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) on the air. Radio Ebony out of Iringa is broadcasting Saturday afternoon shows, with FORS and WCS guests, highlighting conservation issues. The show includes interviews, songs sung by local children and a call-in even where listeners try to identify wild animal sounds.