Catching Butterflies with Shimoni School Children

Category: Butterflies, Coastal Forest, Environmental Education, Shimoni Forest | Date: Sep 14 2008 | By: gvikenya

It took a few weeks to get our Saturday morning forest education off the ground, but we know now not to try starting new programmes in the school holidays. However many of the children from last Saturday where back again yesterday for part 2 of our children’s environmental awareness on behalf of our local partner Friends of Shimoni Forest.

To be honest we were expecting a different set of children and therefore to run the same lesson. But some quick thinking by myself and Tess and we picked up form where we left off last week. Our topic was ‘Biodiversity’, something the coastal forests of East Africa are globally recognised for. After a presentation of how different animals such as the Colobus and the Syke’s monkeys use forest resources differently and so share the habitat, we took a walk to the forest edge and played a game.

The three teams of children, the Baboons, Spiders and Swifts had half an hour with our butterfly sweep nets, to catch as many butterflies as they could… and as many different species. We have been doing this daily as part of our research programme, so were somewhat put to shame when the children came back with species we hadn’t yet recorded! But after a tie-breaker, the Swifts won with 11 butterflies from 9 different species.

Earlier this week I was emailed a couple of letters from the children of the Olive Rehabilitation Centre in Mombasa - an inspirational project where a small team of dedicated volunteer with very little resources achieve very big results with underprivileged children of the slums, giving them a genuine shot at a decent education… and the only reliable meal of their day: