Post from the future

Monday, May 17, 2010

Today we took 40 students and 10 teachers on a field trip down the river to see the Ganges River Dolphins live and up close. All of the participants have spent their lives growing up on the water and most of the participants often see boats like the one we used. However, for nearly everyone, this was the first opportunity they have had to travel on such a boat and to learn about the dolphins that call their
river home.

One of the teacher specifically thanked Elisabeth, the Wildlife Conservation Society staff member who taught the educational portion of the trip, for teaching them and then student (the teachers asked as many questions as the students!) about their own backyard.Yesterday we taught the students that they will need to think about four key elements in writing their stories: characters, setting,problem, and solution.

Today, Elisabeth spent a lot of time speaking about the characters and setting (e.g. dolphins and river). Then one of the students specifically asked about the problems the dolphins face so they can include that in their stories. It is great to know that they were paying attention and spent the day connecting what they were learning during the field trip with what they had learned about creative writing. It has been great to see how well the creative writing portion and the conservation education portion of our approach complement each other!

Tomorrow the students will begin the writing exercises, hopefully inspired by a day on the water.