KEEP strives to save one of the remaining rainforests in Kenya through environment education, awareness building, development and the implementation of economic alternatives to the exploitation of forest resources.
WildiZe Foundation's grant enabled KEEP to:
1. Develop and publish locally-relevant, culturally-appropriate conservation education materials to be used as a resource by teachers,
2. Train KEEP staff to train local teachers in use of the guide book,
3. Build a national and international network of resources and collaborators in the development and dissemination of the education materials.
In this model, re-orienting formal education is just one component of the role of formal education in community-based conservation and sustainable living. Formal education is one component of education in the wider picture. Also important are informal education (e.g. outreach, media, etc.) and adult training programs for land/wildlife managers, decision-makers, and community development. Within formal education, it is also important to provide basic education for children, and to restructure college education such that it creates graduates who enter various fields with an understanding of conservation. A local conservation organization (e.g. Kakamega Environmental Education Programme - K.E.E.P.) can be an effective focal point for many of these education components, but much more can be accomplished with partnerships with regional and United States universities and other programs and NGO's.
The model presented here focuses on re-orienting formal education in public schools. In the model this begins by identifying important and relevant components within two separate but non-exclusive domains: (1) local or indigenous knowledge, values, and skills and (2) applicable modern ecological and conservation concepts. Once this is done, and this will vary from region, situation, and community, then they can be woven together in numerous ways and integrated into public school curriculum. In a country like Kenya where the future of students depends on scores on standardized tests, teachers and schools would be resistant to the addition of conservation curriculum. However, there are many ways to re-orient standard curriculum with conservation concepts, values, and skills. This can be done in a continuum from simple and non-intrusive to complex and considerable reconstruction. The simplest way is to provide teachers with local examples of concepts that they already teach. For example, symbiosis is taught in Form I/11, but the examples given in the textbook are European in origin. It is very easy to provide teachers with local examples that would reinforce conservation values. The diagram provides examples of increasing effort (arrow that darkens) in re-orienting. The extreme and ultimate goal is to restructure the national curriculum to include conservation and sustainable living concepts, skills, and values.
The vehicles for re-orienting include:
(1) teacher workshops
(2) field trips (supplemental lessons)
(3) science kits (provides local examples and activities to reinforce concepts)
(4) student-scientist research partnerships
(5) guest speakers (supplemental lessons from university faculty, land managers, local conservation leaders, etc.)
(6) restoration/alternative use projects
In our model, we will use K.E.E.P. as the hub for re-orienting education. They already provide field trips to students, outreach programs, and some restoration/alternative use projects (e.g. butterfly farm, botanical garden). We will begin by holding teacher workshops where teachers learn forest ecology and conservation concepts and leave with a booklet with local examples for concepts they teach, supplemental lessons, lists of guest speakers and contact information, information on field trips and restoration projects, and ideas for beginning to restructure the curriculum in their schools.
FAST FACTS:
Kakamega Forest covers an area of about 240km2 and was established to protect the only mid altitude tropical rainforest in Kenya, a remnant and eastern limit of rainforests of Zaire and West Africa affinities are unique in Kenya and the forest contains many species found nowhere else in the country.
The forest lies in the Lake Victoria catchment, about 50km north of Kisumu and just West of the Nandi Escarpment that forms the edge of the central highlands.
