LWC Education 2006

The rainy season is also the time when the
schools Students at WC Education Centre have their long break and the
Education Department at the LWC holds its annual Holiday Workshops for primary, secondary and tertiary students. This year we held our workshops in collaboration with, and funded by, the Busch Gardens, Florida, as part of the Conservation aCross Cultures project. The theme this year was ‘Addressing the Bush Meat Crisis in Cameroon, and the workshops, which were attended by 81 students, were held at the same time as three workshops in Florida.

Exchange of communication between Cameroonian children and Florida During the workshops the students attended lectures, took part in a hunting debate with real hunters who came from the nearby village of Batoke, designed posters and enjoyed one-on-one conversations online with the students
in Florida. These exchanges enabled the students, both here and in Florida, to discuss and compare their lives. Identical questionnaires were given to both the Cameroonian and the American students and the results, as you can imagine,
were very interesting. Not all of the questions directly concerned conservation but rather asked questions about the details of the student’s lives. Some unsurprising, but nonetheless interesting, results came out of these questionnaires: my favourite is that the Cameroonian student’s families tend to shop in the market twice a week for food and are all involved in growing vegetables, whereas none of the American families grow food, and many of them tend to do their shopping monthly. Like last year the workshops were a great success and were thoroughly enjoyed by all the students and the staff at the LWC. We would like to thank Busch Gardens for their continued support of the LWC’s education program and hope that next year’s workshops will be as successful.

On the 5th of June the LWC
celebrated Visitor finger painting World Environment Day
by inviting schools from Limbe to visit the LWC. The children were given guided tours and were invited to take part in creating a banner to mark the occasion. The banner, depicting a gorilla painted with hands and fingers, was a great success and all the children loved taking part. The banner now proudly hangs in the LWC’s Education Centre and clearly states for all to see that the children of Limbe support conservation.Education Volunteer Glen Motomba helped a school visitor make their mark on World Environmental Day

The gorilla hand painting says it all

Children celebrating completion of banner

Another success story from the Education Department was the LWC’s first international conservation award for one of its staff: in June, Ateh Wilson, the LWC’s Education Officer, was awarded the Charles Southwick Contribution to Conservation Education Award at the International Primatological Society Conference in Entebbe, Uganda. His award is in recognition of the many years of dedicated hard work that Wilson has put into the LWC’s education programs. Anyone lucky enough to walk
past the Education Centre on a Saturday afternoon will have seen Wilson teaching the Nature’s Club. The sound of the children all singing together with their hands
aloft is one of the most inspiring sights that the LWC has to offer. His award was
well deserved.

WELCOME
LWC Education 2006





		The rainy season is also the time when the schools have their long break and the Education Department at the LWC holds its annual Holiday Workshops for primary, secondary and tertiary students. This year we held our workshops in collaboration with, and funded by, the Busch Gardens, Florida, as part of the Conservation aCross Cultures project. The theme this year was ‘Addressing the Bush Meat Crisis in Cameroon, and the workshops, which were attended by 81 students, were held at the same time as three workshops in Florida. During the workshops the students attended lectures, took part in a hunting debate with real hunters who came from the nearby village of Batoke, designed posters and enjoyed one-on-one conversations online with the students in Florida. These exchanges enabled the students, both here and in Florida, to discuss and compare their lives. Identical questionnaires were given to both the Cameroonian and the American students and the results, as you can imagine, were very interesting. Not all of the questions directly concerned conservation but rather asked questions about the details of the student’s lives. Some unsurprising, but nonetheless interesting, results came out of these questionnaires: my favourite is that the Cameroonian student’s families tend to shop in the market twice a week for food and are all involved in growing vegetables, whereas none of the American families grow food, and many of them tend to do their shopping monthly. Like last year the workshops were a great success and were thoroughly enjoyed by all the students and the staff at the LWC. We would like to thank Busch Gardens for their continued support of the LWC’s education program and hope that next year’s workshops will be as successful. On the 5th of June the LWC celebrated World Environment Day by inviting schools from Limbe to visit the LWC. The children were given guided tours and were invited to take part in creating a banner to mark the occasion. The banner, depicting a gorilla painted with hands and fingers, was a great success and all the children loved taking part. The banner now proudly hangs in the LWC’s Education Centre and clearly states for all to see that the children of Limbe support conservation.Education Volunteer Glen Motomba helped a school visitor make their mark on World Environmental Day The gorilla hand painting says it all Another success story from the Education Department was the LWC’s first international conservation award for one of its staff: in June, Ateh Wilson, the LWC’s Education Officer, was awarded the Charles Southwick Contribution to Conservation Education Award at the International Primatological Society Conference in Entebbe, Uganda. His award is in recognition of the many years of dedicated hard work that Wilson has put into the LWC’s education programs. Anyone lucky enough to walk past the Education Centre on a Saturday afternoon will have seen Wilson teaching the Nature’s Club. The sound of the children all singing together with their hands aloft is one of the most inspiring sights that the LWC has to offer. His award was well deserved.