Art for Gorillas

Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), MGVP | Date: Nov 11 2009 | By: Julie

Dr. Jean Felix Kinani is MGVP’s Rwandan in-country field veterinarian. Today he visits AoC’s class at Nyabitsinde Primary School.

A student volunteer pretends to be a sick or injured mountain gorilla as Dr. Jean Felix and Innocent prepare the kids for what’s about to happen next.

Wearing a mask to help prevent disease transmission, Dr. Jean Felix has darted his pretend patient with anesthesia. From here the gorilla will be treated or a snare will be removed. Usually a reversal is administered and the patient awakens quickly after a procedure.

Pretending mops and brooms are trees and bamboo, the students act out a possible scene in the forest while the vets attempt to help the endangered mountain gorillas.

Thank you Drs. Magdalena, Jan, and Jean Felix for sharing with our young Rwandan students what you do to help the mountain gorillas. Your expertise and dedication is remarkable.

Tags: children, education, gorilla doctors, MGVP, rwanda, wild animal vets

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), MGVP | Date: Nov 09 2009 | By: Julie

Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project’s Rwanda-based vets take time out of their busy schedule to visit our students and shed more light on HOW and WHY they treat the endangered mountain gorillas. Dr. Jan Ramer, MGVP Regional Veterinary Manager, is here today with AoC’s Rushubi Primary School students. Like Dr. Magdalena who visited a different set of kids previously, these gorilla vets encourage our young students to work very hard in school so that perhaps they can be vets one day. Let’s hope!!!

Dr. Jan gives a student a chance to experience what it is like to hold a dart gun. She reiterates that the vets do not carry guns with bullets - only guns with medicine!

It’s a lot more difficult in the forest to prepare the syringe and dart gun so that the patients don’t see - let alone to fire the gun with the syringe hitting the correct spot on the gorilla.

After a very exciting and informative talk with the kids, Dr. Jan settles in for computer work while the students paint their papier mache mountain gorillas. What a great class! Thanks Dr. Jan for your visit. Please come back next year with a new group of aspiring naturalists and vets.

MGVP’s Dr. Jean Felix next!

Tags: children, education, gorilla doctors, MGVP, rwanda, wild animal vets

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), MGVP | Date: Nov 05 2009 | By: Julie

Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project’s Rwanda-based vets take time out of their busy schedule to visit our students and shed more light on HOW and WHY they treat the endangered mountain gorillas. Dr. Magdalena, an expert on wild animal health care, talks with the kids and lets the kids practice with some of the tools she uses to treat gorillas in the nearby forest.

AoC’s Innocent and Eric stand by to translate and help Dr. Magdalena as she opens up her medical kit which includes all necessary equipment needed for treating sick or injured gorillas in Volcanoes National Park - quite a bit of equipment to be carrying up the steep volcanoes.

Dr. Magdalena prepares a flying syringe with either antibiotics or anesthesia. Innocent is translating her English to Kinyarwanda.

Innocent pretends to be a tree as Dr. Magdalena and a student prepare to shoot the dart gun containing the prepared syringe out the classroom door. We all made sure no one would be walking by! Kids screech with excitement with the sound of the dart gun and the launching of the syringe. They also get a much better idea of how the Gorilla Docs work in the forest!

Dr. Jan is next to enlighten the kids. Please tune in next time.

Tags: children, education, gorilla doctors, MGVP, rwanda, wild animal vets

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC) | Date: Oct 29 2009 | By: Julie

AoC’s Parents as Partners Open House at Rushubi Primary School.
All photos courtesy of Molly Feltner.

Wow, oh wow, we had a great turn out at our second open house! We didn’t even offer (nor will we ever) banana beer or per diems!

A future student? We are hopeful that this young child’s brother or sister–who was an AoC student, now a ‘graduate’–is handing down lessons to her such as the basic habits of personal hygiene, respect for oneself and others, and a sense of wonderment about the world they live in.

Gifts were given to students who received top marks on the final exam, who had perfect class attendance, and for putting forth exemplary effort throughout the school year. The woman pictured above, on the far right, stands proud after her daughter receives an award in all three categories.

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After Dative’s poignant letter she read aloud, I gave her a huge hug.

The teamwork of Eric, Innocent, Molly, Valerie, Phocas, Amahoro Tours driver Emmanuel and assistant Hassan, teachers, and students was remarkable. We simply can’t do what we’ve been trying to do if not for the commitment of this dedicated group of people.

Tags: children, conservation, education, environment, parents, rwanda

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC) | Date: Oct 21 2009 | By: Julie

2009’s conservation classes are wrapping up. January 2010, we’ll begin with a new group of children and their classroom teachers. But until then, the AoC team and I are determinedly revving up for one last effort to bring home what we have taught and involved our students, their teachers, their fellow classmates, and their families in - at our forthcoming Parents as Partners Open Houses.

In retrospect, I wish we had started with a parents open house in addition to finishing our year with another. I see all too clearly a lack of communication between parent and child, an absence of responsibility and compassion, a complacency and waiting for the next hand out. It was suggested more than once to us that parents would be more likely to attend the open house which begins at 9:00 am if we were to serve beer… I responded with something like there is NOT a chance in …., but we will offer fruit juice!

Change does begin with an individual and it does take time, but in a place like Rwanda with its relatively recent draconian history and the human population so high and such little land space, I feel we must do all we can to get our messages about health and conservation to our students and their families.

Each student writes his or her name on the invitation seen above - with the invitation in both English and Kinyarwanda - and takes it home.

Below, our invitation to park officials, district leaders, teachers, and more.

Eric and Innocent are working on their five minute speeches they will present to parents and invited guests which will stress the need to work together, as a team, if we want to make real change.

Wish us luck!

Tags: , children, communication, conservation, education, health, mountain gorillas

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC) | Date: Oct 18 2009 | By: Julie

To love, protect, and feel compassion for a mountain gorilla is to really see a mountain gorilla - in all its shapes and forms. Our students have always been told that they should protect mountain gorillas - their immediate neighbors in Volcanoes National Park. Being told is one thing, but to understand and develop feelings of compassion is another. Art of Conservation’s approach toward inspiring young people to really care for each other, animals, and the entire natural world is through dialogue, exploration, and art.

Please view our video from two class sessions of creating papier mache mountain gorillas.

AoC student Job proudly displays mountain gorillas he and his classmates made. Photo by Molly Feltner.

Tags: art, children, education, endangered species, mountain gorillas, rwanda

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC) | Date: Sep 27 2009 | By: Julie

Thank you Stockshot Studios for your generous donation of $210.00 on the 23rd of September. The team at AoC and I appreciate your support. Big hugs and love to you!

Last time on Evolution…
At the base of the Virunga Volcanoes, we prepare our timeline. Then students begin their safari 4.5 billion years ago with the formation of Planet Earth.

Tags: art, children, conservation education, dinosaurs, evolution, great apes, rwanda

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC) | Date: Sep 22 2009 | By: Julie

During our first 2 years of conservation education classes, the AoC team would frequently hear students ask, “Where do gorillas come from?” The first time I heard the question was when a park service employee was visiting the class and sharing information about the forest, mountain gorillas, and his job duties. He was hesitant to give an answer or explanation. I thought, wow, what a shame people who work so closely with the endangered mountain gorillas do not feel comfortable discussing the evolution theories behind one of our closest relatives. This got the AoC team really thinking about how we could use this as a topic for a lesson. Thus began our own research on how, why, and when our great ape ancestor started evolving. Where did we start—with the formation of Planet Earth 4.5 billion years ago!

Julie asks the students questions. “When was Earth formed?” “Was the planet as we see it today?” “Are you the same as you were one year ago today or have you changed?” Photo by Molly Feltner.

We step outside to the schoolyard to begin our walk through time. First stop, the formation of Earth. Students hold props, such as papier mache dinosaurs and great ape masks, until the time is right to introduce them onto the scene of life. Photo by Molly Feltner.

Our safari has brought us up to 144 million years ago when the Earth is blooming with flowers and plant-eating dinosaurs like the stegosaurus are dominating the landscape. Photo by Molly Feltner.

Well into our story and getting closer to the appearance of the great apes, we learn that the present day location of the continents has not always been as it is.

I can safely say that universally all kids love dinosaurs! Our students had not heard of them before a few weeks ago when we were discussing the meaning of threatened, endangered, and extinct species. AoC volunteer Molly Feltner made this beauty of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Kids are crazy about it. Photo by Molly Feltner.

We have to travel a long evolutionary journey before we finally come upon the 5 great apes. It is easy to describe the obvious differences between monkeys and apes with the kids. They see golden monkeys nearby with their long, beautiful tails walking on all fours as well as occasionally seeing the mountain gorillas when they come out of the park to eat eucalyptus bark, without a tail and occasionally running on their two feet. Photo by Molly Feltner.

Using gorilla masks to help with our lesson, we stop a moment to talk about gorilla classification. Mountain Gorillas (Gorilla beringer beringer) are a sub-species of Eastern Gorillas (Gorilla beringer). Photo by Molly Feltner.

After gorillas we meet chimpanzees, bonobos, and finally the youngest of the hominids species, you and me, Homo sapiens. Photo by Molly Feltner.

More soon on evolution and “Where Do Gorillas Come From?”

Tags: children, education, endangered species, evolution, mountain gorillas

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC) | Date: Sep 10 2009 | By: Julie

Volcanoes National Park in the Northern Province of Rwanda holds many treasures - the most famous being the endangered mountain gorilla - but there’s no reason not to cheer for and educate ourselves about the golden monkeys who inhabit the montane forests of the Virungas as well!

Please enjoy the fabulous pictures created by our students during our lessons Animals Living in the Volcanoes National Park.

Picture #1, Golden Monkey (Cercopithecus mitis kandti)

Picture #2.

Picture #3.

Picture #4.

Picture #5.

I had the opportunity recently to visit golden monkeys with volunteer Danielle and photographer Michael Young. Michael took this photo of me.

Tags: art, children, conservation education, golden monkey, rwanda

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC) | Date: Sep 02 2009 | By: Julie

Kicking off our section called Animals Living in Volcanoes National Park, we begin with MOUNTAIN GORILLAS.

To begin the lesson, visuals are passed around the classroom.

What forests do mountain gorillas inhabit?

AoC teachers, Fahad and Innocent, share mountain gorilla information.

AoC art teacher Eric is busy at the chalkboard with the drawing lesson of an anatomically correct mountain gorilla in relation to the average height of a human being.

Bristol paper, watercolor paper, pencil and watercolors used in today’s lesson.

Students turn in their mountain gorilla pictures and put away their materials.

Tags: children, conservation, education, mountain gorillas

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