SPIRIT OF THE JAGUAR RETURNS

During half term, 150 children ranging from years 3 to 9 took part in the return of the Spirit of the Jaguar challenge across Knowsley’s three City learning Centres working with the Transition Co-ordinator as a cross EiC programme. This activity followed on from their exploration as part of the summer school this year, in which they were able to explore unchartered territory in Bolivia, with a group of explorers (including Damian Allen, Director of Children’s Services and Simon Chapman, author and the ‘Explorers Wanted!’ series) battling to save the jaguar from extinction and chatting with the locals in the wetlands of Brazil – all without ever leaving Knowsley!

During the summer, children used the latest technology to communicate with real life explorers via satellite video conferencing, email and text messaging and worked on an in depth project to develop plans for sustainable tourism, conservation, and education in the two countries.

Now that the children have been able to learn about the two different countries they were ready to take on the next challenge…….

Throughout the week children will split into groups and work on several small projects based around the following themes:

Social

Designing a hospital.
Investigate the transport and transport system.
A day in the life of a child in Porta Joffery compared to theirs.
Investigate the diet of other countries.

Tourism

Design an ‘eco friendly’ means of transport for tourists.
Investigate currency to include tourist budget.
Produce a play script from a tourist perspective.
Draw up an itinerary for explorers.

Conservation

Find out about pets, local animals and bugs in the area.
Produce several food chains.
Find out about the threats posed to animals.

As part of this investigation, activities will include a video/audio diary, rainforest roadshow, dance, De Salao football and much more.

On the final day, the children will give a presentation of their findings to their parents, local councillors be given the opportunity to ask the Director of Children’s Services, Damian Allen and Simon Chapman about their exploits in the summer.

All of the resources from this programme including archived video conferences, text messages, emails, photographs and children’s work will all available as a continually developing sustainable resource to support learning and teaching across the borough to use for years to come. You can see examples of the work taking place during the half-term break on our 'Schools Gallery' pages (updated during the weeks activities).

Background

Damian Allen is a trustee of a Conservation Charity which supports the Jaguar Ecological Reserve (focus for our Spirit of the Jaguar Project) in the Pantanal, which promotes sustainable ecotourism and community development for the local people. The Porto Joffre area has no school and currently 40 children receive no education at all. The profile provided by the Knowsley Summer School project and the friendship gifts we brought from Knowsley in Damian’s capacity as Director of Children Services, enabled him to broker a meeting between the local mayor (Clovis Martins) and the president of the conservation charity, Douglas Trent. This resulted in the charity committing $10,000 to contribute to building a school and a house for teachers with the local council agreeing to secure the land and provide two teachers. Furthermore, this deal prompted the local hotel owner to contribute an equal amount to provide another school further downstream. This was real development work in action involving Knowsley pupils making a real difference to the life chances of some children in Brazil.

Evaluations for the programme were very positive:

Parents:

“Found it very interesting. My boys were eager to get to the CLC each day. We would be interested in any other projects in the future.”

“My son really enjoyed this summer school was really enthusiastic and interested. He has learnt so much and he tells me all the facts he has learnt. Can’t stop talking about it.”

Children:

“The Jaguar Summer School was different to the things I usually do in the summer school holidays. I thought it was very good and I hope I come back next year.”

“It was brilliant and I want to do it again and again week after week. It was fabulous, brilliant and every good describing word ever.”

Teacher:

“They have learnt a number of new ICT skills which they have been able to use to enhance their project. A very interesting week and a very lively bunch of youngsters who achieved much throughout the week. A very interesting concept!”