Schools get environmental resource materials

April 30 2008

The British High Commission made a presentation of several educational materials on sea turtle conservation to the Ministry of Education yesterday.

The books are intended for use in all of the country’s secondary schools.

British High Commissioner Terence Knight presented 22 learning resource packs to Science Co-ordinator Earl Skerritt. Each book set contains a Sea Turtle Ecological Guide, an educator’s handbook and a teacher’s manual.

The resource packs were created by WIDECAST, the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network, an association of partners through the wider Caribbean including Latin America, the Caribbean islands and the United States.

The packs were designed to raise awareness of the nesting season for turtles and the tagging of turtles to help the conservation effort.

The kits have been distributed to teachers and students across the Eastern Caribbean, wherever the British High Commission is located.

Knight said the Commission is pleased to be involved in the project and that they have provided funding to various projects relating to sea turtle preservation to the University of the West Indies and WIDECAST.

“We share the view of WIDECAST that it is important and urgent that teachers need to source material to raise the awareness of their students to conservation issues in general and endangered species in particular.”

He said he foresees the benefits of students gaining greater appreciation of the environment around them and gaining a "spring board" to future academic and career endeavours.

Skerritt thanked Knight and said while secondary school students would benefit, the primary school students are also looking forward to accessing the resource materials.

He said the packs will prove to be valuable resources, which will enhance the teachers’ ability to find information.

WIDECAST regularly produces materials to raise awareness and also helps to set up monitoring programmes. WIDECAST Country Co-ordinator Tricia Lovell said that the Jumby Bay turtle programme was set up with its help.