Karoo Desert NBG: Capacity Development

Teacher Professional Development Training

Aims to:

• To build educators’ knowledge around the topics of biodiversity and sustainable development.
• To assist educators in identifying various opportunities within the National Curriculum Statement and CAPS.
• To build educators' capacity to conduct environmental education lessons in the Karoo Desert NBG.
• To develop communities of educators and build support structures that promote critical thought amongst environmental education practitioners.

Previous Projects 

The Teacher Professional Development Project in 2007

The project had the following structure:

1. Workshop
A workshop was facilitated with the educators to build their knowledge base around the concepts of 'environment', 'environmental education', 'biodiversity' and 'sustainable development'. The educators were required to link these concepts to the different Learning Areas of the National Curriculum Statement and develop lesson plans that could be conducted in their own school context.

2. 'Demonstration' lessons
The Senior Environmental Education Officer at Kirstenbosch NBG developed a lesson focussing on the adaptations and biodiversity of the plants of the Succulent Karoo and Nama Karoo Biomes. Environmental Education Officers taught the lesson to groups of learners from participating schools while the educators tagged the lesson with the lesson plan. The educators were provided with the templates of the teaching and learning resources in order to produce their own resources for lessons that they would teach.

3. Educators teach the lesson
The educators taught the lesson to new groups of their learners while the environmental education officers tagged the lesson and assisted them when necessary.

Outreach Greening Training Workshops in 2010

Training of Schools' Green Teams

Three schools in the Worcester area were greened, sponsored by money obtained from the South African Lottery. They were Esselen Park  Primary School, Esselen Park High School and Brandwag Primary School. The schools' green teams, consisting of the caretaker, teachers and learners' representatives of the eco-clubs at the schools, received basic horticultural training. They are trained in basic garden design, soil quality, planting, plant propagation and garden maintenance.

Training of municipal workers

During July 2010 our team, led by our Outreach Greening officer, trained 12 municipal workers basic horticultural skills and they planted 4 gardens around Worcester under her guidance. They too were trained in garden design, soil quality, planting, plant propagation and maintenance.

Contact Information

For more information contact Eunice Jurgens.