{"id":6271,"date":"2025-05-12T22:16:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T22:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reservaloscedros.org\/?p=6271"},"modified":"2025-05-12T22:32:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T22:32:13","slug":"environmental-education-to-care-for-and-learn-from-the-marvelous-los-cedros-protected-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reservaloscedros.org\/es\/2025\/05\/12\/environmental-education-to-care-for-and-learn-from-the-marvelous-los-cedros-protected-forest\/","title":{"rendered":"Educaci\u00f3n ambiental para cuidar y aprender del maravilloso Bosque Protector Los Cedros"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the first months of 2024, CIPBAT\u2014the Los Cedros Scientific Station team\u2014has carried out a dream of our founder Josef DeCoux: make an alliance with the Manduriacos Valley school systems to benefit the children and adolescents of the communities surrounding the Los Cedros Protected Forest (LCPF) with environmental education. Los Cedros\u2019s incredible ecosystem would provide the classroom, tools, and the encyclopedia to learn the sciences of the forests of the Choc\u00f3 bio-region and the Tropical Andes. With the cloud forest as the teacher, our future generations would better understand the value and importance of Los Cedros\u2019s biodiversity.<\/span><\/p>\n

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To achieve this dream, we held meetings with several local educational institutions, the Cotacachi cantonal Education District, and the Forests School Network to build a participatory, relevant, and clear pedagogical proposal. We tried to make it a collaboration, nourished by the insights of teachers, the invaluable experiences of forest-based environmental education, and popular community education processes. We wanted to ensure the teaching would be respectful and coherent with the local reality and with the students\u2019 experiences and previous knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

In September 2024, with the help of the Isla Santa Isabel Educational Unit (San Miguel de Chontal and Son Jos\u00e9 de Magdalena communities), Primero de Junio School (Pueblo Unido community), Ram\u00f3n Viescas School (Magdalena Alto community), and the Manuel Alfonso Echeverr\u00eda School (Brillasol community), the Education District approved the pilot environmental education course proposal, and this great dream began. Over the course of four months, we applied a differentiated methodology to work with approximately 180 students between five and 18 years old.<\/span><\/p>\n

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This pilot course addressed the following priority subjects:\u00a0 LCPF\u2019s geographic location, ecosystemic characterization, LCPF\u2019s importance as a habitat for endemic and highly threatened species, definition and types of ecosystem services, forest dynamics, LCPF trigger species, Rights of Nature, and collective actions to ensure the Forest\u2019s protection.<\/span><\/p>\n

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We adopted the methodology of experiential learning, observation, and interweaving of theory and practice. We made fun materials to encourage learning through play. Among them is a sticker album, \u201cCromo-Somos del Bosque,\u201d a field guide introduction to Los Cedros\u2019s biodiversity through 42 stickers of different species and groups of flora, fauna, and fungi. The field guide inspires and enhances skills such as research, reading, writing, observation, and drawing.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\t\t