Young EcoLeaders of the Brazilian Rainforest

Good morning, dear donors, and we hope you are well!

And we can't wait to tell you about our latest course for Environmental Leaders Online. We just finished our second course yesterday evening, and we are thrilled with the results! 

We are all learning a lot, and it's wonderful to be in touch with people of all ages and backgrounds from across Brazil. Our network is growing by leaps and bounds. and students in this cohort came from the public and private sectors as well as from civil society. 

During this second iteration of the course, we wanted the students to have more ownership of what they learn, and we decided to base our teaching style on that of Portuguese-born educator José Pacheco who now lives in Brazil, and is one of the pioneers of project-based learning in Brazil. This style of teaching (which is unusual in Brazil) provides space for reflection, and encourages students to research collaboratively, develop habits of critical thinking, identify problems and come up with solutions which they can apply to their surroundings. All of which is the opposite of the traditional top-down approach used in most public schools in this country. 

In our course we adapted our methodology to allow more space for discussion, and the results have been amazing. We provided pre-recorded materials (e book, recorded lessons, videos and supplementary material) and met up for “live” weekly sessions online, during which the students went into breakout groups where they analyzed, discussed and developed collaborative solutions to specific problems of concern to the group.

Interestingly, the most commonly recurring concern was the question of waste disposal, in relation to pollution and eventual contamination of water resources. And the different solutions ranged from informal programs of environmental education for children and youth, to income generation schemes through recycling, to community composting schemes, community gardens, working with garbage pickers and awareness-raising campaigns using social media.

After the success of this course, we´re now turning our attention to next steps. One possibility is to work with a school a few hours from here that works with project based learning, to see if we can create an online course for some of their students. And there´s already significant interest in running more online leadership courses for the general public. We´ve even had requests to do the course in English!

So thank you, thank you, dear donors, for your support. This past year has certainly been challenging. But it´s also been a time of tremendous opportunity.  We'll keep you posted, and please look after yourselves! 

with rainforest love from  

Yasmin and the Iracambi team 

Links:

• What is project based learning?

Dear donors, 

We hope you are doing well and seeing light at the end of the covid tunnel? It's been a long haul, hasn't it? 

But one good thing that came out of it for us at Iracambi, is our online environmental leaders course. Which wouldn't have happened had we not been locked down with the schools closed for a whole year. 

Our second course is going very well, and this group is really getting down to business. We encourage them to reflect on the issues in their communities that they would really love to fix, figure out the underlying causes, and mobilize to solve the problem. And this group seems to be laser focused on sustainable lifestyle choices, as well as developing ways of dealing effectively with the problems of garbage collection and proper sanitation.   

So, whether they live in the tropical zone or in the deep south (which is temperate, in Brazil!), in a city or in the rural area, they all agree that Brazil is an amazing country, blessed with extraordinary natural resources, and we need to organize and take action, individually and collectively, to live more sustainably and protect our soils and water from further pollution.    

It's so encouraging to hear from so many articulate people of all  ages and all backgrounds who are  determined to make a difference in their communities. The students are telling us that lockdown has forced them to reflect on their lives and lifestyles, and they are excited to meet other environmental leaders and be able to strategize and work together. Oddly, isolation has, in many ways, brought us together.

While we're running our online course, we haven't forgotten our Young Ecoleaders and we're still hoping that we may be able to start hosting them again in the second semester. We're planning weekly lessons for 40 middle school children, with all manner of outdoors hands-on activities, and we know that the children are as eager to come back as we are eager to see them. So we'll be able to hit the ground running when the covid situation permits. 

Until that time, we're so grateful to you, dear donors, for your support, and we're grateful for the tech  solutions that enable us to work together even when we live thousands of miles apart! 

Stay well, and we look forward to bringing you more news of our environmental leaders online, 

with love from Yasmin and the Iracambi team