Intensive Conservation Education Skills Training
ZOO/SANIZE organized three educator training
workshops at our office premises, sponsored by
Wildlife Conservation Society. We invited carefully
selected educators zoo personnel, zoo volunteers,
school teachers, museum educators, students, NGOs,
and individuals in different post from forest
departments, colleges, university departments,
These training modules are intended to provide
educators with effective and easy-to-use teaching
tools featuring a wildlife theme, which they could
apply to any topic about which they need to teach.
The training also provides a source of effective
activities and teaching strategies to reach
children. Simple evaluation tools for assessing the
efficacy of different techniques are also taught.
Our objective in all these activities is to help
educators improve their teaching by using
active-learning techniques which produce more
effective delivery and improved response from
learners.
The third Intensive Educator Skills training (IEST)
was organized from 18-20 July 2008 and had
representation from three states, Karnataka (3),
Kerala (3) and Tamil Nadu (12).

Each training had a different agenda to reflect the
needs of the groups invited, as well as to serve
ZOO’s own needs. One of our needs was to test some
new material. We introduced some of it in the 2
workshop and all of it in the third workshop.
Though the training theme is almost invariably wildlife teaching,
the programme agenda and teaching tools may revolve
around a particular species, such as Sloth bear
which was the subject for the third batch. ZOO has
developed a teaching guide or manual for teaching
about Sloth bears, sponsored by ALERTIS,
Netherlands. The guide includes games, drama,
mapping activity, field activities, role play, the
work of conservation biologists, indoor and outdoor
activities, debate, mock CAMP or PHVA exercises,
evaluation tool and other topics.
All activities, whether they are simple games or
brain and body-breaking activities, are intended to
teach something about the theme such as the biology
of bears, how bears influence human culture, how
field biologists work to gather data, how data is
used to make conservation decision, etc. Lessons
learned by ZOO in testing the draft bear guide using
the help of our trainees, will be reflected in a
better product, which should be available by the
time of Wildlife Week.

Click here for the report of the First IEST – June
2007
Click here for the report of the Second IEST – June
2008.