The lives of the people living in Sainte Luce are highly dependent on the environment. However, little or no environmental education is taught in schools and any knowledge that communities do have of the environment has been passed down through the generations.

The aim of this module is to provide long term environmental education for the schools in the Sainte Luce region with volunteers preparing and presenting environmental education lessons assisted by Azafady staff and translators. This module will take advantage of specially adapted Malagasy versions of the acclaimed PACE Action Sheets which were developed by Siren Conservation Education and used in many parts of mainland Africa but now translated and adapted by Azafady especially for use in Madagascar.

Sainte Luce is a small coastal village. The main source of income for most families is from fishing. Previously, people supplemented their diet with bush meat from the forests, such as Eulemur collaris, but now rely on fish and their crops. Although people no longer capture bush meat, they still use the surrounding forest as a source of timber, firewood and medicinal plants. In summary, the lives of the people living in Sainte Luce is highly dependent on the environment, from biotic factors (flora and fauna) to abiotic factors (for example rainfall and soil conditions required for growing crops).

Villagers have purely local knowledge regarding their environment. This has been passed down through the generations and little or no environmental education is included in the school syllabus. Although much of this knowledge is reliable, there are many faults. For example, people believe that it is the smoke from burning the land which brings the rain. Interviews revealed that people stopped hunting E.collaris because the vazaha (white people) came and told them not too; there is little understanding of the uniqueness (or the finite number) of Madagascar’s flora and fauna, or the conservation of species. Therefore environmental education is important in terms of livelihoods and the success of conservation initiatives.

Aims and Objectives

The initial aim of this module is to provide long term environmental education for the schools in Sainte Luce. If volunteer numbers are high for this module it will be possible to expand the work to other schools in the surrounding villages. Volunteers will aim to present two environmental education lessons during their two week schemes.

Methods

In order to provide a structured, environmental education programme, the Pan African Conservation Education (PACE) project work sheets are to be used. These work sheets are organised into topics such as soil, rainfall. During each scheme, the volunteers will be given two topics on which to prepare their lessons. They will spend 3 - 4 days planning a lesson and one day presenting the lesson to the schools (see sample schedule).

All lesson preparation will be based at the research station in Sainte Luce where volunteers will be provided with the topic and resources required for the lesson presentation. Supervision and advice will be provided at the beginning of the preparation but then volunteers will be expected to produce the lesson plan themselves. An Azafady guide will work with the volunteers during all the planning and be a translator during the presentation.

Sample Schedule

Day	Place
Saturday	Lanirano	Arrival
Sunday	Lanirano	Azafady & Env. Education introductory talks	Banking and e-mailing
Monday	Sainte Luce	Trip to Sainte Luce	OFF
Tuesday	Sainte Luce	Lesson preparation
Wednesday	Sainte Luce	Lesson preparation
Thursday	Sainte Luce	Lesson preparation
Friday	Sainte Luce	Lesson presentation
Saturday	Sainte Luce	Forest tour	OFF - beach
Sunday	Sainte Luce	Lesson preparation
Monday	Sainte Luce	Lesson preparation
Tuesday	Sainte Luce	Lesson preparation
Wednesday	Sainte Luce	Lesson presentation
Thursday	Lanirano	Trip to Fort Dauphin	OFF
Friday	Lanirano	Debrief	Banking and e-mailing
Saturday	Lanirano	Departure