Perhaps it was my love of the United States National Park system that has drawn me to this guiding question, but I am interested in how Peruvian students view their natural world and whether there is a formal curriculum of study for environmental studies/ecology/. Prompted by recent developments in the US in terms of rolling back legislation that protects our parks, this stands in contrast to Peru that has recently enlarged the scope of their national parks to protect millions of acres.
GUIDING QUESTIONS: 1. Is there a formal curriculum that speaks to ecology, climate change, the environment? 2. With such ecological diversity, how do the students view their role in protecting the environment?Are there actions that they engage in that allows them to be conservationists? Do they take action to save endangered or threatened animals? 3. How do students (primary grade) view their the natural world/ ecology/ environment?
The remote rain forests in Peru’s northeast corner are vast — so vast that the clouds that form above them can influence rainfall in the western United States. The region contains species, especially unusual fish, that are unlike any found elsewhere on Earth. Scientists studying the area’s fauna and flora may gain insights into evolutionary processes and into the ecological health and geological history of the Amazon. Now the area has become home to one of the Western Hemisphere’s newest national parks. Yaguas National Park will protect millions of acres of roadless wilderness — and the indigenous people who rely on it — from development and deforestation. “This is a place where the forest stretches to the horizon,” said Corine Vriesendorp, a conservation ecologist at The Field Museum in Chicago, one of many organizations that worked to win the national park designation, Peru’s highest level of protection. “This is one of the last great intact forests on the globe.”
Peru’s new park, on the other hand, joins a network of parks and reserves recently created to preserve territory in South American countries, including Ecuador, Chile and Colombia. “Nowadays we’re trying to think big,” said Avecita Chicchón, who leads the Andes-Amazon Initiative, part of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. “You need these large areas to be connected.” In Peru and elsewhere, political leaders, bolstered by strong civil society initiatives, are recognizing the current effects of climate change and their role in mitigating them in the future. They are setting aside large parcels of land in part to fulfill commitments made as part of the Paris climate agreement. And local and indigenous groups, finally getting a legal say in the process, have also provided critical support. More than 1,000 people, belonging to at least six indigenous groups, live along a 125-mile stretch of the Yaguas and Putumayo rivers. To them, this place is “sachamama,” a Quechua word roughly meaning “mother jungle,” the sacred heart of the area that produces the flora and fauna on which the groups depend. These indigenous people are part of a larger community dispersed across the landscape during the rubber boom at the turn of 20th century. They are the descendants of the few who survived slavery, torture and genocide, which took tens of thousands of lives.
Over the past two decades, indigenous federations living around Yaguas have been working to protect the land. They educated scientists and conservationists about its geography and biology, and convinced the government that the land was worth saving. In the Amazonian lowlands of Yaguas National Park, different types of rivers that contain distinct forms of aquatic life mix during the rainy season as forests flood. This unusual cocktail of river waters produces biodiversity; more than 300 species of fish have adapted to forest life. “Imagine you were a fish and you were in a river, and you could pass to another river, not flowing, not swimming down river, instead crossing the forest,” said Max Hidalgo, an ichthyologist at the Museo de Historia Natural in Lima. The fish feed on fruits, disperse seeds and find homes in branches. To find them, you’d have better luck cracking open a log than using a fishing line, said Dr. Hidalgo, who has been studying fish in the area for years. One species, not yet named, grows no bigger than your thumb and has only been found dwelling in subterranean tunnels. Dr. Hidalgo hopes to return to the park soon to confirm whether it’s new to science. But with some 3,000 plant, 600 bird and more than 150 mammal species, there are far more than fish in Yaguas. Often elusive in heavily hunted areas, tapirs in Yaguas seem to remain more visible. “I’ve never seen this many tapirs in one place,” said Dr. Vriesendorp. They are sometimes found in the forest, eating salty mud to extract its minerals.
Endangered giant otters, which can grow six feet long, have also been reported in the park. As their habitats become fragmented by deforestation and development, these oversized weasels face local extinctions. But their presence in Yaguas suggests that the aquatic ecosystem is still healthy, which is important given that the park contains the headwaters of a tributary to the Amazon. A team led by the Frankfurt Zoological Society is hoping to get an estimate of the otter population, determine if there are any otter-human conflicts, and eventually assess whether mercury from small, illegal gold mining operations has entered the food chain. If future proposals are successful, three-quarters of the Putumayo River will become a vast, unfragmented corridor for wildlife across northern Peru. And it could also be important as the world aims to reduce carbon emissions. Looking over the rain forest from above, predictable linear patterns of another Yaguas jewel emerge: peat bogs, only recently discovered. They are part of a network of peat bogs across northern Peru that together store massive amounts of carbon. Keeping the carbon in the ground is critical, although it will prove challenging in remote Yaguas and surrounding areas with fewer restrictions.
“For now, Yaguas is safe, but in the 20 years I’ve been working in the Amazon, I’ve learned the hard way that today’s remoteness is tomorrow’s access,” said Gregory Asner, an ecologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science.
But for now, many are celebrating. “People don’t create national parks every day,” said Dr. Vriesendorp. “It really is a big deal.”
Peru has 84 of the 103 existing ecosystems and 28 of the 32 climates on the planet, making the country the most ecologically diverse in the world. Peru also hosts the most diversity of birds, mammals, butterflies, and the Tambopata and Manu regions possess two of the most diverse flora and fauna forests in the world.
Home to the origin of the mighty Amazon River, the rainforests of Peru are some of the most important in the world, with high concentrations of biodiversity and large intact areas remaining. Ranking only behind Russia, Canada, and Brazil in the size of its frontier forests, Peru has more than 133 million acres of old growth rainforest, representing 57 percent of the countryÍs original forest cover.
Peru is home to approximately 1,750 bird species, 13,000 plant species, and one-quarter of South AmericaÍs mammal species. In many parts of the Peruvian Amazon there are between 150 and 300 species of trees within less than three acres of rainforest. It is believed that the area around the Pongo de Mainique Canyon on the Urubamba River contains more biodiversity than any other similar-sized area on Earth.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the Amazon in Peru is threatened. Since the rubber boom of the early 20th century, countless Peruvian politicians have made extracting natural resources from the Amazon a priority. Current causes of deforestation in Peru include logging, oil extraction, chemical spraying and clearing of vegetation to eradicate coca plants, and colonization leading to the conversion of pristine forest into farms and pastures. Over-hunting also threatens the region's biodiversity. In many cases, the traditional territories of the Peruvian Amazon's indigenous peoples have been lost to the encroachment of the Western world. In the Madre de Dios region in the southern Amazon, a gold rush that has been active since the 1970s and huge logging concessions are pushing the cultures of the Mashco-Piros, Amahuaca, Yaminahuas, and Yora tribes to the brink of extinction.
QUESTION #1 Is there a formal curriculum that speaks to ecology, climate change, the environment?
The answer to this question is yes, however, this curriculum if a product of the Ministry of Education although there is also a Ministry of the Environment that works independently on areas of the environment from a business/citizen point of view rather than with the aim of public education. From my observation, it seems that these two agencies work autonomously rather than in collaboration with each other. The Ministry of Education is responsible for creating, disseminating and enforcing all aspects of education in Peru. It is centralized with Lima at its center of decision-making. According to the National Curriculum of Regular Basic Education for Primary Education, www.minedu.gob.pe/curriculo/pdf/programa-primaria-16-marzo.pdf, science and technology is a specific curriculum area with its own set of competencies that allow students to: Inquire by scientific methods to build their knowledge, Explain the physical world based on knowledge about living beings, matter and energy, biodiversity, Earth and universe, and Design and build technological solutions to solve problems of its environment. Upon close inspection it seems as though there is an obvious push for students to not only be aware of their physical/natural worlds, but to also use scientific inquiry/PBIL and a hands-on approach to solve problems when they are applicable and if not permissible to know the limitations as to why.
A rough translation of the curriculum states: In this area, the theoretical and methodological framework that guides the teaching process and learning corresponds to the scientific and technological research and literacy approach,based on the active construction of knowledge based on curiosity, observation and the questioning that students make when interacting with the world. In this process,they explore reality; They express, dialogue and exchange their ways of thinking about the world and They contrast with scientific knowledge. This allows them to deepen and build new knowledge, solve situations and make decisions with a scientific basis; Likewise, recognize the benefits and limitations of science and technology, and understand the relationships that exist between science, technology and society. What is proposed through this approach is that students have the opportunity of "doing science and technology" from the educational institution, so that they learn use scientific and technological procedures that motivate them to explore, reason, analyze, imagine and invent; to work as a team; as well as to encourage their curiosity, creativity and develop a critical and reflective thinking. • To scientifically investigate is to know, understand and use the procedures of science to build or rebuild knowledge. In this way, students learn to raise questions or problems about the phenomena, structure or dynamics of the physical world; mobilize their ideas to propose hypotheses and actions that allow them obtain, record and analyze information, which they then compare with their explanations; they structure new concepts that lead them to new questions and hypotheses. Involves also a reflection on the processes that are carried out during the investigation, in order to understand science as a process and human product that is built collectively. • Scientific and technological literacy implies that students use knowledge science and technology in their daily lives to understand the world around them, the way of doing and thinking of the scientific community, as well as to propose solutions technologies that meet needs in your community, region, country and world. As well, seeks to exercise their right to a training that allows them to function as responsible, critical and autonomous citizens facing personal or public situations, associated with science and technology, which influence the quality of life and the environment in your community or country.
SECTION 6.8.2 Competencies, capacities, learning standards and performances by grade COMPETENCIES Investigate through scientific methods to build your knowledge The student is able to build their knowledge about the operation and structure of the natural and artificial world that surrounds it, through procedures typical of science, reflecting on what he knows and how he has come to know it by putting at stake attitudes as curiosity, astonishment, skepticism, among others.
The exercise of this competence involves the combination of the following capabilities: • Problematize situations to do inquiry: pose questions about facts and natural phenomena; interpret situations and formulate hypotheses. • Design strategies to do research: propose activities that allow building A procedure; select materials, instruments and information to check or refute the hypotheses. • Generates and records data and information: obtain, organize and record reliable data depending on the variables, using instruments and various techniques that allow to check or disprove the hypotheses. • Analyze data and information: interpret the data obtained in the investigation, contrast them with the hypotheses and information related to the problem to elaborate conclusions that prove or disprove the hypothesis. • Evaluates and communicates the process and results of your inquiry: identify/ give/ know the technical difficulties and the knowledge gained
COMPETENCY Explains the physical world based on knowledge about living beings, matter and energy, biodiversity, Earth and universe. The student is able to understand scientific knowledge related to facts or natural phenomena, their causes and relationships with other phenomena, building representations of the natural and artificial world. This representation of the world allows you evaluate situations where the application of science and technology are in debate, to build arguments that lead him to participate, deliberate and make decisions in matters personal and public, improving their quality of life, as well as preserving the environment.
This competence involves the combination of the following capabilities: • Understands and uses knowledge about living beings, matter and energy, biodiversity, Earth and universe: that is, it establishes relationships between various concepts and it transfers them to new situations. This allows you to build representations of the world natural and artificial, which are evidenced when the student explains, exemplifies, applies,justify, compare, contextualize and generalize their knowledge. • Evaluate the implications of knowledge and scientific and technological work: when identifies the changes generated in society by scientific knowledge or development technology, in order to assume a critical position or take decisions, considering local knowledge, empirical and scientific evidence, in order to improve their quality of life and preserve the local and global environment.
QUESTION #2 With such ecological diversity, how do the students view their role in protecting the environment? I had the opportunity to present my lesson on endangered animals to the grade 4 students at Santa Ana School (SAS) and there were several noticeable differences between the two groups of students centered around content knowledge of the immediate environment. The students at SAS were more aware of the animals that were threatened or endangered, not only in Peru, but in their immediate environment of Lambayeque/Chiclayo as well. I presented the SAS student with the piping plover, a bird native to the north shore of Long Island. I gave them background knowledge in the form of posters that the Lee Avenue students created. Then they were charged with trying to "Save the Piping Plover." What strategies would they use? What would they think of doing? My Lee Avenue students decided to raise money/funds and awareness. By contrast the students at SAS proposed actual hands-on solutions such as safeguarding the piping plover, moving the piping plover to a new location, and introducing a series of measures increase the population by making more space/breeding grounds for them. This led me to hypothesize why. Of course, this is all speculation at this point, but I think it has to do with immediate access to technology and the immediacy/access to the outside world. One would think that suburban students would be more in tune with nature and have a greater curiosity, however, I found the opposite to be the case. The students at SAS when they were afforded the opportunity to go on a field trip (outdoors/museum), they really were fascinated with nature often slowing up the line to observe a plant or animal close up. There are a few things that I was able to observe about Santa Ana School and that is there are values in place. These values transcend the classroom. Also, there are updates on the school website that emphasizes respect for nature and for all people.
Question #3 How do students (primary grade) view their the natural world/ ecology/ environment? Based on my brief observations in and out of the classroom at Santa Ana School, I feel that the students there are aware of their natural environmental diversity and they are more in tune with the personal demands and changes to ensure continued and sustained ecosystems. The students at Lee Avenue while also aware of their ecological environment were less likely to offer up ways to help protect the biodiversity that exists along the coastal shores.
Follow-up I would like to re-examine this question once more with my new group of 4th grade students. In addition, because of this IFE guiding question, I have started to think more about the indigenous Quechua in Inkahuasi and Callima. I am now in the beginning stages of developing a grant to return there and try to develop the idea of ecotourism, sustainable tourism, and community/collective organizing based on the model in the south working in conjunction with the organization known as ADEHPRI visit.org/blog/en/asociacion-desarrollo-huayna-paqareq-region-inka-chinchero-peru/. I have been in contact with Professor Leondro Cordova Tocre to discuss the possibilities.