Arts-Based Environmental Education Internship in Costa Rica
Roseangela Hartford, a student of Ursinus College, describes her internship with the Monteverde Conservation League and the Cloud Forest School in Monteverde, Costa Rica.
My interest in the internship stemmed from my commitment to pursuing a career in the field of education. Currently, I am completing my Peace Corps Preparatory Certification within the Education sector with the intention of working with diverse international communities. While the internship was based in an art classroom, my skills in artistic expression and creativity were quite limited. With time and intentional practice, I was able to overcome these challenges and develop an artistic eye within the scope of conservation. The knowledge acquired through researching instructional techniques of educational philosophy incited the development of lesson planning techniques. Moreover, articulating and simplifying complicated terminology within the realm of environmental studies advanced my analytical and public speaking skills. Throughout the internship, I thoughtfully adapted my presentations to meet the expectations of a bilingual school by instructing and answering questions in both Spanish and English. During this process, I progressed my active listening abilities and adapted my rhetoric to meet the comprehension level of a seventh grade classroom.
Throughout my time working with the Monteverde Conservation League and the Cloud Forest School, I acquired an incredible amount of knowledge about the transformative history of the Children’s Eternal Rainforest and applied this knowledge to my instruction. By covering the simplified nuances of topics such as biodiversity, conservation, life zones, sustainability, and topography within the scope of Monteverde, I created analogies, hands on activities, and informal evaluations to challenge students to apply and identify these topics in their daily lives.
My tangible contributions to the Children’s House at Bajo del Tigre included assisting students in painting the updated Children’s Eternal Rainforest logo, creating an interactive topographical puzzle map of the surrounding nature reserves, and renovated parts of the mural inside the Children’s House. While these physical contributions will improve the aesthetic of the Children’s House, I believe my greatest accomplishment was encouraging creative exploration and examination of conservationist issues for the rising generation of students in the Monteverde community. Also, I introduced practical terminology into my lessons including the purpose of nonprofits, market economies, and the land form uses so that the students could understand the holistic picture of conservationist efforts. Above all, this internship evoked adaptability, intentional goal setting, bilingual comprehension, creativity, lesson planning, and presentation skills for a general audience.
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