The Mountain Marmoset Conservation Program is fortunate to have a talented and passionate EE designer, Alessandro
Antunes working with us, he has received acclaim from prominent conservationists such as Russell Mittermeier.
There are many forms of environmental education, in this article we focus on creative educational materials that have been developed for use in schools and community events.
Alessandro started as a field research apprentice, but soon he developed a deep interest in expanding the limits of environmental education focusing on the different approaches to involve and engage with different public audiences and begun to study and create new ways to bring closer the interest and understanding of children, youth and adults about environment issues.
AURITA'S GANG COLORING BOOK
Illustrated by Rafael Bucharel this book tells in a easy language some basic information about the Buffy tufted-ear marmoset
(Callithrix aurita) habitat and behaviour.
The target audience for this colouring book are the children of kindergarten, between 2 and 6 years. Children learn about the environment through storytelling with the ‘Auritas gang’ puppets which is then followed up with the activity of colouring the booklet.
At the end of the session we propose to the children that they become authors, inviting them to recount the story from their newly coloured pages, helping them to fix content and develop creativity, trust and communication.
ON THE AURITA'S TRAIL - comic
Illustrated by Lya Alves and André Alves the comic strip ‘On the Trail of Aurita’, it was developed as part of a formal classroom approach to stimulate environmental awareness in elementary and middle school students.
It is an indispensable support material to the teachers, giving the students a story that relates to the history and challenges faced by Buffy tufted-ear marmoset (Callithrix aurita). Created with in a very engaging graphic style, this story delivers explanations of doubts and curiosities and it lasts an average of 20 minutes.
After reading the students are invited to a playful activity that varies according to the age group: for elementary school, dominoes and memory cards of primates; and for the second segment of elementary and middle school, the board games "In the Trail of the aurita" and "Rescuing the aurita".
CALLITHRIX AURITA'S Game of life - game
In addition to simply being a great game to be enjoyed by anyone, this game can also be used as an activity that supports and reiterates the learning experience from the comics ‘On the trail of Aurita’ in schools or other institutions.
In this game 4 participants assume the identity of a specific character (the C. aurita itself, two of the invasive species C. jacchus and C. penicillata, and the researcher). Through playing the game the players experience some dangers and pleasures that happen to the 4 characters involved in a conservation project.
RESCUING CALLITHRIX AURITA - game
This board game is special in many ways. First, it shows the area of occurrence of C. aurita and C. flaviceps and clearly shows the invasion of the other species within these areas, since its board is a real map of this region with the DATA originated from the research geo-processing.
The second highlight of the game is the proposition of knowing the national and state parks of these areas of occurrence, parks that are created precisely to guarantee the preservation of nature and endangered species.
Third, each child is not just a player, they become an administrator of one of the 6 parks that the game presents, receiving a card that has the park logo and an area on the card itself that says: Preservation Centre. The aim of the game is to rescue and successfully relocate C. aurita to preservation areas and avoid all the threats.
This game, developed by PREA team together with a group of volunteers from Nova Friburgo. The game offers a useful opportunity to discuss the concept of umbrella species, because the winner of the game is not necessarily who rescued more auritas in danger, but rather, what other threatened species they also saved. The players discover this at the end of the game by flipping over the species tokens they have accumulated and gaining additional points.
Endangered primates memory cards
It is one of the most popular games for children around the world.
This one was developed to show different aspects of primates threatened in Brazil, such as size and colour. With each open (up-turned) card the teacher leads the students to know and recognise and differentiate each species.
With 36 cards, the game enables an interaction of a group of up to 10 students, developing diverse capacities like attention to detail, memory skills and working in group.
It is an excellent fixing activity after the storytelling of the aurita, (either by the comics, or the puppet theatre), because with 3 or 4 sets of memory can engage the entire group of listeners and reiterates recognition of the species and expands the period of discussion and involvement.
Endangered primate dominoes
Illustrated with 7 primates threatened with extinction in Brazil, this ancient game allows up to 4 participants to be guided by the teachers about the visual differences in each species faces.
The differences and similarities characteristic of each species and their comparisons, make this game a fun joke and a good reflection on the evolution of the species.
RELIQUIAS BRASILIS CARDS
An original and competitive CARD game, Reliquias Brasilis - Terrestrial Biomes, is a pilot project still in development inspired in the style of the games like Pokémon.
The game presents animals at risk of extinction in each of the terrestrial biomes of Brazil with 3 letters of danger (fire, deforestation and drought) and two letters of resolution of these environmental problems (rain and "Mother nature").
The "Mother Nature" card is the master card of the game and saves animals from all dangers, and also represents humanity's actions to save the environment.
The DEMO version has 5 animals from each biome with its extinction risk and the preservation value of the biome. The winner of the game will be the nature preserver that saves more species from the dangers that appear during the game.
For more information, purchase and training online contact Alessandro Antunes +5524998185359