I haven't written much about the Education for Sustainability projects I work on at school in my capacity as Environmental Sustainability Co-ordinator, but this one stood out as somewhat unique.
It was one of the more eye-catching emails to arrive in my inbox.
“Would your pupils like to meet our elephants on an educational online call?”
I was keen to read on.
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| The Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation offered my school live elephant safaris over Google Meet Photo Credit: GTAEF |
The offer was from the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation (GTAEF), a conservation group that runs an elephant sanctuary located approximately 900 kilometres north of Bangkok at the remote point where the borders between Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet. A very different place from the city based international school where I teach.
We were in a second round of online learning due to the pandemic and pupils had been learning from home for nearly a month. The answer was an obvious - yes!
It was great to work closely with Laddawan Yonthantham and John Roberts of the GTAEF. Armed with a laptop, smartphone and selfie stick, they took the whole of the primary school (that's around 970 pupils) on a series of virtual field trips to meet the elephants they care for.
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| Children were delighted with the elephant's fun loving-antics Photo Credit: GTAEF |
The project's success prompted me to pitch the story to the TES and they kindly asked for a full write up. The full article can be read here. It was also published in the TES magazine itself. Click this link for the tearsheet.
It was good to have the chance to point out to the wider TES audience of educators that: despite the pandemic and resultant move to online learning, we can find new and innovative ways to engage pupils in real-world experiences that boost learning – and highlight the real people working to solve our conservation and sustainability problems.
Such learning brings not only reality to pupils, but also hope. Hope that we really can fix the planet on which we all depend.
The GTAEF continues to offer virtual field trips to schools worldwide, and can offer virtual elephant safaris to suit a variety of timezones. Don't hesitate to get in touch if you would like your school to be involved.
