Hi Sheryl, Sherri, Louise, and Sara. What a treat to hear from all of you. We would LOVE it if you join us walking through time! Please feel free to help us as we add events to the timeline - we left out a few - but for now I hope this helps the students have a better understanding of how and where their glorious gorillas come from? We’ll slowly add more evolutionary events for future classes. Seems there are some experts in human origins and evolution amongst you all! Louise, perhaps someday I could visit Koobi Fora Research Camp in the Turkana Basin. I promise not to get in the way of your team! So, gals, I hope you like the student’s drawings below. Thanks for your interest and encouragement.
Then it was time to move into the classroom to put what we just learned on paper. Students use oil pastels on pastel paper for their illustrations.
“Where do gorillas come from?” a student asks our guest speaker, a guide from the park service, (ORTPN). We hear a bit of nervous laughter and no further discussions. I ask myself, “Why?” It isn’t an easy question to tackle, to be sure. Should Team AoC avoid addressing this wonderful question which we receive from nearly every group we work with? Valerie, Eric, Fahad, and I agree to design a basic interactive lesson about Earth, life, and the great apes, but first we need an evolution timeline crash course of our own! We read and receive help from Dr. Magdalena, The approximate time of Planet Earth’s formation seems to be a good place to start. In a previous post, I introduced you to Alphonsine, a Rwandan artist living near Parc National des Volcans, who makes all kinds of things from dried banana leaves. Alphonsine giggled as she walked away with our command of a big round ball, and yet she produced just what we were looking for, Planet Earth.
After our walk on the timeline, we head into the classroom.
Julie
THANK YOU, Theresa, for your March 6, 24, 31, April 17, and May 1 donations. Team AoC truly appreciates your kind generosity! Recently I read Origins Reconsidered - In Search of What Makes Us Human by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin. I learned a great deal as well as thoroughly enjoyed the entire book. However, Part Six: In Search of the Future, contains one particular sentence which continues to resonate within me, “The night sky is full of unanswered questions.” One Saturday and Sunday not too long ago after students put away their art materials and were returning to their seats for our few remaining moments of closing remarks, I found myself asking the children if they gazed into the dark night sky and if they did what did they think about. I assigned the students a little homework which entailed looking at the sky before going to bed and asking themselves three questions - questions about anything. Here are just a few questions that students shared the following week: Valerie, Eric, Fahad and I answered some of the questions as best we could, but the primary purpose for the exercise was to provoke curiosity as well as accepting that not all questions have one finite answer and many questions may never arrive with conclusive answers. Isn’t life about asking questions? In turn, do we not spend a lifetime sifting through and exploring only to be spurred on by more questions? We are into our second year of Art of Conservation classes and almost every group of students will ask, “Where do gorillas come from?” So continuing with life’s questions, we presented our current students with three questions: 1. When was Planet Earth formed? Please join us as we explore together in the upcoming blog. And thanks, Dr. Leakey, for your inspiring and insightful words. Julie
Lesson Where Art Shows the POSITIVE Impact of People on the Environment Art student’s express more views on how they think people can protect the environment as opposed to being destructive.
More again soon,
Thanks, Paula, Sheryl, Wanda, and Antonio, for your recent comments! It’s great to hear from you all. Does a country at PEACE help MOUNTAIN GORILLAS? I would say so. The children at Nyabigoma Primary School who are participating in Art of Conservation classes illustrate people caring for people in their drawings as a way of depicting people’s positive impact on the environment. Recently, at Nyabigoma Primary School, Team AoC had the pleasure of speaking with the governor of the Northern Province of Rwanda, Boniface RUCAGU, as well as the mayor of Musanze District, Celestin KARABAYINGA and Director General of ORTPN, Rosette Chantal RUGAMBA. The governor points to a drawing on display made by one of the children and asks me what it means. I happily share with him that the drawing is a result from our discussions on conservation. And with this particular drawing, the student is expressing his view of a POSITIVE impact people may have on the environment - living in peace and caring for our family and friends. Needless to say, all agreed!
Julie
Lesson Where Art Shows the NEGATIVE and POSITIVE Impact of People on the Environment. Below is the final installment, for now, in our series of illustrations from our students showing what they believe to be destructive to our ecosystem. Here the students focus on hunting and setting snares to trap gorillas and other animals in the forest. Warning! Life if not always a pretty picture.
It is visually apparent our students are familiar with what may occur inside the forest, a place bordering on their homes and farms. It is our hope, Team AoC, that during classes we can foster a greater appreciation and awareness of the gorillas and environment not because we told our students they must, but because they choose to for reasons which resonate within. I’m feeling optimistic, especially with the children we work with, that a broader understanding is being recognized of why protecting our ecosystem is so important to us all. Julie
Three times a week, we load my truck with art supplies along with the prepared lesson of the day and drive up the hills to where we hold art classes - all of which are next to the gorilla park, Parc National des Volcans. Our ‘art studio on wheels’ presently works with two classes of children and one class of adults. We are more than halfway through our three-month course now. Guest visitors, Dr. Lucy, Dr. Magdalena, Jean de Dieu NGIRIRA, Odile NYIRAGUHIRWA, all of whom work in or around the park in various capacities, have helped Team AoC instill even greater awareness to our 150 students of the importance of preserving our natural resources, taking care of our own health, and protecting flora and fauna. Below, watercolor illustrations following the theme of the day, “Lesson where art shows the NEGATIVE and POSITIVE impact of people on the environment.” We continue concentrating on the negative or destructive impacts. If you’re feeling a bit low or discourage by the art shown here, please be patient, soon we’ll present our student’s positive perspectives! Illegally cutting trees. Illustration #1. Illegal activity in a Protected Area, such as hunting, poaching bamboo, and setting the forest on fire. Illustrations #2. More illegal activity inside Parc National des Volcans. Illustration #3. Hunting with bow, arrow and machete in the forest. Illustration #4. More fire in the forest. Illustrations #5. Rwanda has strict regulations for cutting any tree whether it is inside the forest or outside of the forest. Illustration #6. Julie
When we are at war, do we have a NEGATIVE impact on the environment? What happens to our natural world when contiguous countries are perpetually in conflict? When different ethnic groups oppose each other, when jealousy and other human weaknesses drive families and neighbors to hostility, when hunger overrides common sense, how do these things effect our environment? Join me in viewing our student’s perspectives to these questions as we continue with: Lesson Where Art shows the NEGATIVE and POSITIVE Impact of People on the Environment. We continue with the negative or destructive behaviors and impact of people.
Much more art to share with you, please stay tuned.
What are people’s negative and positive impact on the environment? How do our art students express their thoughts on the environment? Will a healthy environment immediately benefit these students and their families? What human behaviors are acceptable or not acceptable when caring for our natural surroundings? Let’s take a look at illustrations from our Art of Conservation students when presented with these questions. To begin with, we look at the NEGATIVE / DESTRUCTIVE impacts. Polluting our Rivers and Lakes A number of students believe people have a negative impact on the environment when human excrement enters into the lakes and rivers. Below, four illustrations.
Much more to come!
Team AoC, Eric, Valerie, Fahad, and I, occasionally go for a run after AoC’s children’s classes which are held on the weekends. After leaving Nyabigoma Primary School, we usually park the truck nearby at a point where many of the tour operators drop off their clients for the commencement of their mountain gorilla or golden monkey visit. The visitors will walk along cultivated fields and pass by family compounds and perhaps a goat or two before reaching the buffalo wall - a dry stone wall which is about one meter high and one meter thick. Once one climbs over the wall, one has entered the protected forest of Parc National des Volcans. The setting is beautiful here in Kinigi District, the Northern Province of Rwanda, but certainly not void of problems facing the local human and animal population.
It may not appear to be a very steep incline, but once Eric, Valerie and I turn around and head ‘up hill’ the breathing gets a lot more difficult! Ah, but it feels so good!
During the weekends while we are running around up in Kinigi, tennis is going on down in Ruhengeri/Musanze Town.
Team AoC’s work is done for the day so we travel down the ‘hill’ to Ruhengeri/Musanze Town and collapse! More again soon, |
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Welcome to Art for Gorillas.
This is Julie Ghrist, director of Art of Conservation (AoC):
Creating a Healthful Connection between People & Mountain Gorillas.
Team AoC includes Valerie Akuredusenge, Eric Mutabazi, and Fahad Ndangiza.
AoC is a partner of Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project, Inc. (MGVP, Inc.).