Conservation education Ruvu Forest Reserve, Tanzania

 

Integrated teaching and learning approach: Conservation education in primary school pupils adjacent Ruvu Forest Reserve, Tanzania 

Project Completion Report

1. Description of the most important outcomes of the project

The following are the three most important outcomes of the project.

        i. 15 primary school teachers were empowered and motivated on practical teaching and learning approaches, using forest reserve as the learning resource.

       ii    227 pupils from Boko and Sogaprimary schools have been trained on sustainability issues, importance of forest, nursery techniques, tree planting skills and post planting care of younger trees

        iii.  Schools community has become integral part of the forest conservation benefiting about 12,000 ha of the forest reserve.

2. Plan to share the project results with others

To disseminate our work and inform government authorities, organizations and conservation communities, project team plans to disseminate and share project work through host organization website (www.gicd.or.tz), partner organizations including COMMEET foundation (www.COMMEET.org,) and Rufford foundation (www.rufford.org). We will also disseminate project findings through social media, village meetings and workshops.

Looking ahead and the important next steps

The project has contributed to address shortcomings of the integrated teaching and learning approach in learning environmental of Tanzania schools. Based on our experience from previous work, the project team proposes the following;

•                       To continue monitoring conservation and sustainability education in four primary schools reached by this program.
•                                      To extend the practical lessons to two primary schools. This will be the final schools in order to complete the program which intended to reach 6 primary schools adjacent Ruvu-south Coastal Forest Reserve.
•                                    To continue developing teaching manual, documenting best practices and addressing existing gaps between teaching and learning environment education and sustainability issues in primary schools in Tanzania. The manual will be a reference guide and used to scale up conservation practical teaching and learning to schools adjacent forest reserves in Tanzania.