Throughout the course of the seminar, teachers heard from experts on
topics such as biodiversity, research, teaching techniques and more.
Using that information learned, teachers each wrote a curriculum unit
that will be used in their own classrooms and shared with other teachers
in both their home schools and across the country through both print
and online publication.
To make counting and other basic math
skills more interesting, Joe Parrett, a kindergarten teacher at Kathleen
Wilbur Elementary School in Bear, wrote a math unit that involves the
giant Coccoloba Gigantifolia leaf found in the Amazon. The lesson
begins with presenting a life-sized (as large as 8 feet long by 4 feet
wide) replica of the giant leaf and having students measure it using
nonstandard tools like shoes, hands and notebooks, as well as with a
ruler.
“Any time you can make something more real for them and hands on,
they're very into it,” Parrett said. Though the unit he chose to create
through DTI was a math lesson, he incorporates conservation lessons into
his classroom as well. “Ultimately the biggest takeaway is we have to
do a better job protecting our natural resources, and I think the best
way to protect those natural resources is not reaching out to the people
in power — it’s reaching out to the next generation.”
The mission of ACEER, of which Cox is the president, is to create the
next generation of conversation leaders. Brian Griffiths, a UD alumnus,
Fulbright Fellow and assistant professor at Georgetown University, and
the director of research for ACEER, helped organize the seminar and
program in Peru. Griffiths first traveled to the Peruvian Amazon with
Cox in 2014 as a UD undergrad, and in 2017 he began working with the
Maijuna while helping to teach a George Mason University field course on
conservation and sustainability. He continues to work in Maijuna lands
studying mammals and Maijuna hunting practices and managing outreach
with a local ecotourism company — work that was inspired by his first
trip to Peru.
By bringing the group of Delaware teachers to the Amazon, Cox said
he’ll be able to inspire potentially thousands of students over the next
few decades.
“When you work with teachers, you're not impacting just one person,”
he said. “That one teacher then goes back and teaches many students each
year for the next 10, 15, 20 years, so I think the impact can be
great.”
Reaching out to the next generation in those large numbers is
necessary in order to make the changes needed to reverse climate change,
Cox said.
“The challenges that we face today are not individual problems
anymore,” he said. “Climate change is not [the problem of] an individual
state or county or country — or continent, for that matter. These are
challenges that we face on a global scale, and helping to create the
next generation of conservation leaders is going to help solve these
problems. I don't think it works to work in silos anymore. [Climate
change] is undeniable at this point, so I think connecting students to
the Amazon allows them to connect to what's happening in their own
backyard. Making these local changes will help the global issues that we
see today.”