The Green Road Show

Since its pilot year in 2002, the Green Road Show has been a total success.The Green Road Show is a mobile, all-inclusive and entertaining environmental education program directed towards fifth grader’s.  It is the first environmental education program focused specifically on Pohnpei’s conservation issues.  The school children anxiously await the traveling show on wheels and our educators are always warmly greeted as they drive around town in their painted vehicle.  The pre and post test results show a drastic increase in the participant’s knowledge of their environment.

The program is run by two Environmental Educators that visit all the primary schools six times throughout the school year. Each session is centered on one of four environmental topics: Upland Forest, Mangroves, Coral Reef, and Waste and Pollution. The environmental educators deliver the talks in a fun, visual and hands-on approach, using an array of educational resources.  Each student receives a Student Activity Booklet and posters with information about each topic are left for the classroom. The teachers have no preparation responsibilities regarding the program, but are encouraged to participate and to reinforce the message after the presentations.  The program aims to motivate the teachers to continue giving the environmental message between visits of the "The Green Road Show", and to ultimately have environmental education integrated into the curriculum.

Youth-to-Youth in Environmental Education & Awareness

Borrowing from the very successful Youth-to-Youth public education and awareness program in the Marshall Islands, the Conservation Society of Pohnpei has tailored the approach to improve environmental awareness and education in Pohnpei.  Together with partners, CSP is coordinating the Pwulopwul ohng me Pwulopwul (Youth to Youth) environmental program in seven schools. The program partners each school with a state agency or non-governmental organization to work on an environmental project throughout the school year. Projects that have been implemented previously include lowland sakau production, water quality testing, medicinal plant gardening, marine surveying, Marine Protected Areas, Persistent Organic Pollutants, marine conservation practices, mangrove forest, agro-forestry, upland forest/deforestation and recyclable art. The respective agency, teachers and students carry out their chosen activity in the surrounding community

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 The goal of the campaign is two-fold: to extend positive environmental initiatives to more communities in Pohnpei and to encourage teachers and students to get more involved in addressing these local environmental issues.  The program also builds the students confidence in working with their peers to address the environmental needs of their communities.  Through these activities, the students are to become active contributors in developing a sustainable future for Pohnpei. The program culminates in a fair where students showcase what they learned from their mentor agencies in the form of skits, poster shows, presentations, songs and dances. The fair is also taped and aired on the local radio station and recorded and edited for the local TV station.

Click here to read about the 2007 Youth to Youth Fair

Click here to read about the 2008 Youth to Youth Fair

Community Outreach

CSP tries to undertake all possible awareness approaches to ensure that our message is dispersed to all of Pohnpei’s population. Therefore, CSP devised Community Outreach, an environmental awareness program to target the greater public. Each month, CSP goes to a community to engage citizens young and old, both in and out of school who may still be unaware of ongoing conservation efforts.

The program focuses on the three main eco-systems: the upland forest, the mangrove forest and the coral reef.  The meetings discuss destructive practices and what we as communities can do to help minimize this damage. Videos and posters are presented to help communities see and understand what CSP’s programs are about. The presentations lead into open discussions between the facilitators and community members. CSP finds this feedback quite useful in gauging public opinion as the view points and comments expressed, allow us to better understand and work cooperatively with the communities. At the end of each outreach program, the community is encouraged to come up with a project to improve the surrounding environment. CSP then provides equipment and support whenever possible to help carry out the project.

The Youth Environmental Ambassador Club

The 2004-05 school year the education program implemented  an Environmental Club for grades 9-12 from three local schools. The club meets twice a month, and takes part in workshops, lectures and a number of different activities, like town clean-ups. The Environmental Club is intended to present Pohnpei specific and global environmental information to interested students by participating in hands-on activities which are relevant to conservation efforts. The club also hopes to promote science, math, and environmental careers and support the students in becoming peer and community educators for their environment and ‘owners’ of their natural heritage.

In its second year the club hoped to expand its membership and its scope of activities in the communities. Activities included participation in CSP’s RARE flagship species campaign, radio program production, video making, mural painting, community outreach and environmental songs. The club also held its first summer camp on the islands of Lenger and Kehpara last summer. 2005’s summer marine environmental camp gave the students the opportunity to participate in coral identification, fish monitoring, GPS techniques and Marine Protected Areas exploration. These activities were complimented by a number of presentations by local experts on relevant marine conservation issues. The camp will be a yearly event, alternating between marine and terrestrial themes. In 2007 CSP held its first terrestrial summer camp. Students learned about the Watershed Forrest Reserve, Ethnobotany, Forestry, bird surveys and got to hike Nahnalaud, the highest mountain in Pohnpei.

To learn more about our summer camps please click bellow

Marine based summer camp

Terrestrial based summer camp

Environmental Awareness Creation

CSP has also created a number of resource and media materials in its quest to educate the public about conservation.  Numerous educational presentations, posters, resource materials and promotional items like invasive species hats, grow-low sakau stickers, and canvas grocery eco-bags, have been used to create greater public awareness of conservation issues. In 2004, CSP produced a video in cooperation with Micronesian Seminar, entitled Preserving our Natural Heritage. The video highlighted Pohnpei’s environmental problems of sedimentation, pollution, deforestation and the necessity of protected areas in a visually stimulating manner.  Public Awareness campaigns are also complimented by weekly radio programs and a Conservation Corner section in the local bi-weekly newspaper.  Information dissemination is also accomplished through our quarterly newsletter publication, which is distributed island wide.

Environmental Resource and Activity Book

For the 2007-2008 School year CSP, in partnership with the Pohnpei State Department of Education piloted the Environmental Resource and Activity Book (ERAB) in three elementary schools in Pohnpei The ERAB is a ready-to-use instructional tool aimed at integrating environmental information into the existing primary school curriculum. The ERAB contains lessons, activities, labs, games, and songs concerning environmental issues in Pohnpei. The goal of the ERAB is to inform teachers about environmental issues and provide a way for them to easily pass this information on to their students. The ERAB is currently being printed and CSP hopes to introduce the ERAB to all elementary schools in Pohnpei State including the outer islands in 2009.