This week we visited the Cloud Forest School on Tuesday and
then the Life Monteverde sustainability farm on Wednesday. Both places
definitely showed how much the ticos care about the environment and both were
very inspiring. The Cloud Forest school is a bilingual school for primary,
middle and high school students. We were greeted by one of the directors and
two eighth grade ambassador students who were fluent in English. The two
ambassadors took us on our tour of the school. Everything there was just so
awesome – it would be such an amazing opportunity to teach there. We walked to
the kindergarten/pre-k school, then through the primary and middle school, and
then went on a walk through their nature trail. They told us that every student
gets to plant a tree their first year there in kindergarten and I thought that was
so cool! They are steadily improving the campus of the school and adding more
things. They have a garden where they grow vegetables and plants and all of
them are in recycled containers that will eventually disintegrate. I could tell how proud the students were to be
parts of such a great school. The school allows for students to become bilingual
but also emphasizes on being environmentally aware. Both of these skills are so
imperative for the younger generation to acquire. Society is becoming so much
more wasteful and taking such advantage of the earth. Knowing that there is a school
like this one was so inspiring and really makes me want to emphasize on being
sustainable in my future classroom. The cloud forest school offers positions to
English speaking teachers and I would absolutely love to be able to work there
one day. Being there for just a few hours was eye opening and impacting; I can’t
imagine how life changing it would be to work there. In addition to the cloud
forest school, we did he service project on the Life Monteverde which is a
sustainability farm in Monteverde. Prior to going, I had heard the term and
associated mostly with the environment. We were greeted by the owner of the
farm and it was evident that he was very passionate about what he did. He
explained a little bit about sustainability and then asked for us to go look
around the farm and find things that made his farm sustainable. I don’t know
too much about farming, but I was still able to locate some things on the farm
that made it environmentally, economically, and socially friendly. Afterwards,
he had each group share what they saw and gave us an opportunity to come up
with questions. He did not answer the questions because he wanted to give us
our tour first. We split into two groups – one that went on a tour and one that
went to do some farm work, and then switched. The tour was very interesting; he
told us the history of the farm, and his a lot of his personal beliefs. He was
so inspiring to listen to and I admired his passion for nature and protecting
it. He even had us all find a try and “communicate” with it – something new for
all of us I think. I really enjoyed the style he used to teach us things. It
was very relative for our group as we were all education majors. He allowed us
to explore and ask questions – he let us control our own learning. He would ask
us questions that would spark more questions from us. I have not entered my methods
courses yet so I have not learned too much about this kind of teaching but it
is definitely something that I could use as a teacher. After the tour, we
worked on the farm by preparing the land for planting and then planting some
corn and sunflower seeds. Afterwards, we went back to the classroom, has some
coffee, and he answered any questions that he had not gotten to yet. I think
this farm was one of my favorite things on the trip; mainly because I think it
was one of the things that I feel like I can take back and teach others. I hope
to become more sustainable at home and teach others how to be. It is something
I would like to look into and learn even more about it. In addition, I hope to
make my classroom as environmentally friendly and sustainable as possible. It
is so amazing to me how everything we have done on this trip is so relatable to
teaching.
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