Isla Biodiversity Conservation, Inc.

On 12-18 May 2006, educators from Calayan municipality underwent an environmental education training program sponsored by Isla Biodiversity Conservation (ISLA), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) – Philippines and the Center for Environmental Awareness and Education (CEAE). A total of 19 high school teachers, 33 elementary school teachers, 6 local government officials and staff, 8 ISLA volunteers and 1 WWF staff benefited from the training held at the Calayan Multi-Purpose Hall.

“We are happy to be extending our environmental education training program this far north of the country,” said Froilan Grate, Training Director of CEAE. According to Grate, the training program included two modules: Project Learning Tree (PLT) and Project Water Education for Teachers (WET), each consists of a collection of almost a hundred ready-to-use, innovative, hands-on and easy-to-use activities that can be easily incorporated by elementary and secondary school teachers into their curriculum. PLT focuses on the environment – land, air and water – and is designed to teach children how to think, not what to think, about complex environmental issues while Project WET was crafted to facilitate and promote awareness, appreciation, knowledge and stewardship of water resources, he added.

Each participant received training certificates, PLT and Project WET books and a Calayan Rail Project t-shirt. Ten boxes containing various teaching aids that teachers can use for the activities were donated to 9 public schools and 1 private school.

“The workshop is an enjoyable one and I really learned a lot,” said one teacher participant while another quipped, “This is the most memorable seminar I've attended.”

Out of the 67 participants in the training program, 15 further received a facilitator’s training course to enable them to conduct PLT and Project WET courses in the future.

The teacher training program could not have succeeded without the support of the Department of Education – Division of Cagayan.