The fruits of IIE's labors: teacher Karen Cruse giving a lesson on the Galapagos. Photo by Pete Oxford
Though I delved into Toyota's reasons for annually executing their singular teaching program in the Galapagos, I amazingly failed to touch on the unsung heroes of the operation: the International Institute of Education.
Photo by teacher Lena Tashjian
Now that the Toyota International Teacher Program has ended, I've decided to turn the spotlight on a few of the teachers involved. First came the middle school teachers. Next up, a couple of the high school-teaching trekkers. Just see what a couple weeks in the Galapagos can do for an ambitious educator.
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I've just returned from spending two weeks traveling through some of the most fragile, intricately weaved ecosystems in existence—the Galapagos Islands. Many took issue with my being there at all. Some believe such habitats should be hermetically sealed off in some sort of giant bubble and tended to only by scientists. Some think we should be free to visit the earth's wonders if we did so responsibly. Most were unsure about how tourism and conservation should intersect, exactly. Count me among the last group.
Teacher Eduardo del Solar scanning the Galapagos horizon. All photos by Pete Oxford
What does it look like when 29 acclaimed US teachers embark on a study tour of the Galapagos?
All photos by Pete Oxford
It seems that we only hear about environmental plans and initiatives being made at legislative, university, and corporate levels—and we can forget that there are still folks like progressive secondary school teachers making bold moves in environmental education around the country. They just never get any press.
Photo by Pete Oxford
Every year, Toyota sends a crop of hand-picked teachers to the Galapagos on an environmental study tour. It's a costly program, it doesn't get much press, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the auto industry.
Photo by Pete Oxford
Only a few days ago, top secondary school teachers from the US and Galapagos were working together to create environmental education plans. Incorporating ideas from their disparate locales, they'd forged some progressive, globally applicable projects and concepts for curriculum. It was, as I reported earlier, pretty fascinating to watch.
Photo courtesy of Lind Xu
Why are environmentalists shooting goats? Why have they undertaken an elaborate plan to systematically kill hundreds of thousands of goats by means of aerial and ground hunting operations? Why to preserve life, of course.
Project Isabela: Eradicating Goats in the Name of Biodiversity
Photo by Lena Tashjian
Lonesome George slovenly lumbers out of the brush in his compound, painstakingly climbs the minor incline up to his pool, and collapses. The famed giant tortoise seems exhausted and lethargic, even by tortoise standards. And I can't blame him—if I were 100 years old, the very last male of my species left in existence, and had little hope of fathering children, I'd probably have trouble getting out of bed in the morning too....
Photo by Pete Oxford
From a die-hard ecologist's standpoint, the unequivocal answer is simple:
No.
An endangered Waved Albatross chick, photo by Brian Merchant
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