Teaching about the sea

From our newsletter of June 2010:

By Honey Rose, volunteer in the Environmental Education Program

It was a week or two after my graduation as an environmental sciences major, when a friend told us about South Sea Exclusive and that they were looking for volunteers. After a couple of meet ups with Kuya (Filipino for older brother) Sander, we were able to meet the other volunteers who happen to go to the same school we graduated from. We also learned more about the South Sea Exclusive Foundation as well as the Environmental Education Project that we were going to conduct by the materials given to us beforehand.

During the initial meetings, we still had no idea what it would be like to teach the pupils. All we know is that this will be a completely new learning experience for us as much as the pupils that we will be teaching.

Among the preparations done was the ‘dry-run’ where we were able to share comments and suggestions on how to make the lecture better and effective. The following day, each team (I am paired with Phobis, a education major) was asked to sit-in and observe the class that each will be handling for us to familiarize with the students as well as the classroom environment. It was the first time that we met the students and we were really happy because they were very nice and polite. Teacher Mila was also very nice and accommodating, which made things a lot easier for us. As our team was beginning to understand what we were supposed to do, our nervousness and excitement was increasing as the days draw near to the first day of the project.

The first day was about mangroves and the lecture turned out to be a lot of fun both for us volunteers and the kids. We handed them booklets with information, games and pictures of the different themes we will cover in the project, and we noticed instantly that they were excited to read and answer the exercises in it. The children were eager to listen and participate. Their eagerness and excitement was even more intensified when we started to play the mangrove game. The children undoubtedly had lots of fun because some of them did not want to stop playing even if it was already time for lunch. These positive reactions made us volunteers look forward to the following classes even more.

It is a great feeling to know that we were able to help but surprisingly we realize that this experience also helped us in many ways. We volunteers are truly grateful for the privilege of working with really dedicated people. Special thanks to Kuya Sander and Ate (Filipino for older sister) Kyra as well as the other people we met throughout the project.