UTSA scholar Christine Moseley takes educational excursion to Amazon

Amazon

Amazon rainforest

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(July 3, 2013) -- UTSA professor Christine Moseley in the College of Education and Human Development Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching will join more than 30 other educators from around the United States for the 2013 Educator Academy in Peru.

The academy, which runs from July 2 to July 16, is designed to teach educators from elementary level to the university level about the tropical environment of the Amazon rainforest and the high, mountainous environment of the Andes. It will include hands-on activities and discussions on topics that range from water sustainability practices and data collection to plant and animal adaptations.

During the workshop, which is co-sponsored by Arizona State University and EcoTeach, Moseley will facilitate the collection of data measurements from the rainforest floor and the canopy to analyze using the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program curriculum protocol. According to Moseley, these inquiry investigations and data collection methods are just some of the things she plans to bring back with her to UTSA, a national GLOBE partner school, and specifically, to the graduate-level science methods course she is teaching this fall.

"I can bring back to the classroom the investigation [done] out in the field -- how you can collect data with kids no matter where you live," said Moseley, a national GLOBE facilitator. "I think a lot of the discussions on the trip are going to be like that -- what do we do in our own environment that impacts the rainforest, climate, pollution. And, vice versa, if things happen over in the rainforest, how does that impact us?"

While in Peru, Moseley also will work with children at the Centro de Conocimiento Compartido public library, established by the Conservación de la Naturaleza Amazónica del Perú, A.C., or CONAPAC, a Peruvian non-profit organization. To continue the library's literacy efforts, she collected fiction and non-fiction books in Spanish to take with her to Perus to give to children and adults.

"Personally and professionally, it's like finally getting to see something that you've heard about and read about all your life but never really thought that I was going to get to experience it," said Moseley. "When you do these types of things, it only makes you a better educator. Then I will have a better understanding and a bigger idea of the world, and I can only bring that back to the classroom."

 

 

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