Kids Saving the Rainforest Montly Report May 2006

SISTER PROJECTS

*Akshay Dutt, our KSTR member in India, is still catching poisonous snakes in peoples’ homes and returning them to the wild rather than killing them.  He was in the rainforest called Agumbe, last week, where he studied king cobras.   He wants all of the members of KSTR in Manuel Antonio to go to India!  He will set up the arrangements for us!  Now that is a fieldtrip!!!

*Li Anne and Charlene are Singaporean students from the Raffles Girls' School
They are currently conducting a research study project on environmental awareness and activism among Singaporean youths.  They interviewed Janine for the project and did a survey of 350 students (aged between 13-16) from different schools and backgrounds.

They found out that 87% of respondents were unaware of any local environmental organization and conservation effort. Their project aims to derive sustainable plans to educate a larger spectrum of Singaporean youths about the importance of conservation in Singapore and beyond.

*Diane Overmars of the Nancy Campbell Collegiate Institute, Grade 1 & 2, worked really hard to raise $200 to adopt 10 rainforest trees.  There were only 5 students involved, Sarah, Zoë, Umer, Taylor, and Adib; they presented their findings to the entire school, which was followed up with bake sales.  They still have all of their work and pictures displayed in the school.

*Ann, Ava, James Hawkinson,  Andy Murray and Mary Kline had a table for KSTR at the Earth Day Film Festival at Gunn High School in Palo Alto.   Mary is KSTR’s Director of US Program Development, located in California, and all of them, including her son, Aleister, are coming to KSTR to run the camp for 3 weeks, starting on June 24th.  Also Ava, James and Annie each did KSTR presentations at school.  Ava did a PowerPoint presentation for her class complete with sounds and moving pictures. Annie also did a PowerPoint presentation at her school and she has started a club to begin making bracelets to support KSTR.  James had a persuasive writing speech that he worked on for the past 4 months and it was a large portion of his grade for separate 2 classes. His title was “Why Save the Rainforest?” It was about 10 minutes long and he talked about biodiversity, rainforest medicine, global warming and KSTR. His teachers told him it was one of the best speeches in the freshman class and he gave his speech again in front of the whole school.

*Katie Wendle, a KSTR volunteer for many years, did a fund raiser at her school, Hackley, in Tarrytown, New York.  They raised money for the monkey bridges and trees.

*The Child Development Center Class of 2006, donated $120 as part of a "Save the

Rainforest" bake sale. The 4 year olds personally picked KSTR because it was founded by 2 children.

*GAP (Great Adventures People) & the Planeterra Foundation made a donation of $1000 to our animal rehab center!

*Kathy Harding of the Peters Panthers School, and her students have sponsored part of a cage, food and vet care as well as medicine for the monkey we are rehabilitating and they named him Pete.  They sold over 200 coloring books to raise the money.

Midge Compton and her first grade class made postcards that they sent to KSTR.  They are great and we are going to be displaying them on June 10th, World Environment Day, in the Manuel Antonio National Park.  They will become part of a permanent mural.

MONKEY BRIDGES

In Costa Rica, three areas have asked for our assistance in helping them put monkey bridges up.   Laura and our tech, Lenin, will go to teach them how to do it.

*In Tamarindo, the Hotel Capitan Suizo would like to put up monkey bridges to help the howler monkeys survive in their area.

*The Neighborhood Association of Surfside Potrero in Guanacaste reports that construction has fragmented the rainforest, and they would like to put bridges up.

*On the Caribbean side they are going to be putting up monkey bridges on the 

the Puerto Viejo-Manzanillo road. They are making an information brochure that will outline the Monkey Bridge Project of the Talamanca region, and be distributed among tourists and locals in the region.  They are including KSTR in the brochure.
 

KSTR CAMP

Amanda Dedmond and Margie Updyke are teachers in the states who have a grant to come to Costa Rica. One of their projects will be to run the KSTR camp on June 17th.  For the camp, they have the following plans:
*Read the Great Kapok Tree and follow with having the kids dramatize the
story.
*Make a mural of a rainforest.  Explain how different people impact the
rainforest (poachers, developers, ranchers, slash and burn farmers, etc.) and show how the rainforest is destroyed by folding up sections of the mural to show
the impact of each group.  Explain what will happen without education and
active protection of rainforests.
*Color a tree door hanger or make a rainforest art project--depending on
how much time is left.
*other activities if time- Rainforest Bingo, word puzzles.

Mary Kline, KSTR’s US Director of Program Development in California, is coming to volunteer and she and Ann Hawkinson are bringing 4 kids with them to run the camp for 3 weeks, starting on June 24th.

Jack Ewing from Hacienda Baru in Dominical gave us two books he wrote when the KSTR camp went on his tour.  The books are: Monkeys are Made of Chocolate and Paths of Discovery.  He signed them as follows: “For KSTR, keep up the good work” and “Working together we can create wildlife corridors.  Save the rainforest!”

WEBSITES:

*Mary Kline is posting our monthly reports on our website.  There is a link on the top of the projects page.

*KSTR is now on a local website called Buzboyz which you can see at http://www.buzboyz.com/b2blogs/index.php?blog=2&cat=70

Kids Saving The Rainforest Monthly Report

April 2006