Climate change awareness begins in schools
GINA, GUYANA, Friday, March 03, 2017
The Office of Climate Change held its first workshop today, with students of St Gabriel’s Primary School on raising awareness of climate change, and how they can help to save their environment.
Communication Specialist Yasmin Bowman and representatives of the Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN)
The awareness programme is a collaborative effort between the Office of Climate Change and the Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN).
Communication Specialist Yasmin Bowman told the Government Information Agency (GINA), that the awareness programme aims to teach the school children about the impacts and effects of climate change. “What we are doing this year as an outreach initiative is that we are going to the various schools around the country to bring awareness to the little ones about climate change in general,” Bowman explained.
The communication specialist highlighted that 20 schools will be targeted for sessions in the first half of 2017. She stressed that the awareness programme caters for all levels of school institutions since the office will adapt techniques to teach the students.
“We are going as small, as low as the nursery children; we have primary, nursery and secondary children. For the nursery children the format for the awareness session will be in the form of a puppet show because
A section of the students of St Gabriel Primary School who attended the climate change awareness and outreach programme
we know that the little ones are a bit more visual and so to get them a bit more understanding, we are going to do a bit of puppetry,” the communication specialist explained.
Bowman highlighted that the students will be quizzed at the conclusion of the workshop about what they would have learnt and prizes will be given as incentives. After the targeted number from the 20 schools along coast is met, the awareness programme will continue throughout the year targeting other schools.
Last year, Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman, at the commemoration of World Environment Day (WED) had urged youths to become stewards of the environment.
The Natural Resources Minister had asked the gathering that they consider Guyana as one of the world’s most important countries for biodiversity conservation since the country boasts the highest biodiversity per capita in the world, and has one of the highest levels of biological diversity and concentration.
By: Neola Damon