CREW Programme Educational Projects

CREW links with tertiary institutes

The CREW programme recognised a decrease in students entering the environmental sector. Thus links have been made with tertiary institutes to raise awareness of plant conservation and Red Listing. CREW is involved with environmental courses at the University of Cape Town, University of Western Cape, University of KwaZulu-Natal PMB campus, Durban University of Technology, University of Zululand, University of Pretoria and University of Limpopo.

Plant Monitoring Day

Plant Monitoring Day (PMD) is an annual innovative educational exercise aimed at making students and their teachers aware of the rich diversity of plants in their local surroundings.

Participants employ different sampling techniques, using simple plant identification kits and monitoring equipment in order to identify and record core plant species at selected sites. The sites are carefully chosen, not only for their value to conservation, but also for their proximity to local schools as well as their reserve status or equivalent. The latter is an important factor in order to ensure their sustainability in the future, as the same sites are sampled repeatedly in order to build up long-term monitoring data. At each site students are accompanied by their teachers and CREW representatives.

Plant monitoring day is conducted annually and allows for trends in threatened plant populations to be observed over a long term.

Since 2009 PMD has been integrated into a few WESSA / WWF Eco-Schools and we aim for the project to be better integrated into the school curriculum. CREW has already linked with Eco-Schools facilitators in George and the Midlands Meander Education Project.