A unique Educator’s Tool Kit on the Amur leopard was awarded a gold medal as the best electronic publication at the 13th Far-Eastern Fair “Publishing House-2009”. Also, at the Second Far-Eastern Contest “Higher Education Publications-2009” the Kit was nominated as the best higher education publications in pedagogy and psychology fields and won the award. This Kit was developed and published by the Phoenix Fund and Primorsky Institute for Further Training of Educators (PIFTE) with financial support from the Whitley Fund for Nature.
On October 8, 2009 Phoenix and PIFTE held a training session devoted to bio-diversity conservation in Khasan district of Primorye – Leopard Land. Over twenty-five teachers from various districts of Primorye came to attend the training, the main goal of which was to teach educators to work with the new Tool Kit in order to foster positive attitude among young generation to endangered wildlife and conservation, educate young people to treat the environment with respect and cultivate a sense of responsibility towards the nature. During the training the teachers recognized a high value of the developed materials and admitted that the Kit’s information can be used by children who live not only on Leopard Land, but also in the whole of Primorye.
Why is this Kit unique? Southwest Primorye is considered a home to the Amur leopard population, with about 30-35 individuals left in the wild. However not all residents of Primorsky krai are aware of this rare big cat and threats to its survival. For many years conservationists have been carrying out educational projects aimed at raising level of people’s knowledge about the current state of the environment, fauna and flora and factors with negative impacts on wildlife. The environmental education is mostly focused on young generation in whose hands lies the fate of Amur leopards. But how teachers can provide children of various ages with information on this endemic species, if there is a lack of educational materials and there are no courses devoted to the Amur leopard in school curriculum?
The Phoenix Fund decided to help teachers and developed thirty lessons (with extra games and tasks) covering three main themes: (1) General biology and ecology of leopard covering such topics as Felines, Leopard habitat, and Leopard prey etc; (2) Leopard and Man, covering such topics as Poaching and Conservation efforts; and (3) Leopard in history and culture. Each lesson includes goals, methods, and information on the theme, games and tasks for various age groups, materials for printing, tests and homework tasks, information on slide presentation and video fragments available on DVD. All texts underwent scientific and Russian language editing to meet the highest standards of the state educational material to be approved and recommended for use at schools. Phoenix had all developed materials approved at the Primorsky Institute for Further Training of Educators. This approval means that the materials received an official status to be used at schools. In September 2009, the Kit saw the light of day and 300 copies of teacher’s guide with a DVD were distributed among schools and eco-centres of Primorye.
