NatureKids
November 2006
Activity Update
Welcome to the NatureKids November Activity Update! We hope you’ve had an enjoyable and productive month, and we are excited to share with you all we’ve been doing here at the NatureKids Foundation.
This month in Salitral the teenage class began work on their final projects for the year which will unite them together toward a common goal in the 2006 English Language Movie-Making Contest. For the next six weeks, students will work intensively in two groups to write, cast, direct, act in, film and edit their own 10 minute movies. These movies will be premiered at the annual NatureKids Salitral Christmas Party where parents, students and community members will get the chance to vote on the movie they like best. Best of luck to all our students!
In Drake Bay, students of all ages came together last weekend for this month’s Community Service Faire. Working on projects such as recycling initiatives and community-clean ups, NatureKids Drake Bay students successfully completed their mandatory two hours of community service and came together to plan for the future of their village. In the towns of the English on Horseback program, Progreso and Los Planes, students also came together with the lead of their traveling teacher to complete their service hours and develop projects to help conserve and protect their communities.
This month NatureKids founder and president Mercedes Cerna attended an important networking event put on by the Centro Cultural Costarricense-Norteamericano (CCCN) at the Ad Astral center in Guanacaste. This exciting event brought together many influential players in English language education, and NatureKids’ presence was met with much enthusiasm and positive encouragement from other language and community development practitioners. We are now exploring possible partnerships with the Centro Cultural and the Franklin Chang Scholarship program as a result of our presence—we’ll keep you posted on new developments!
This month the seeds were purchased for NatureKids’ Reforestation Project in the jungles of the Osa Peninsula, as well as in the mountains of Costa Rica’s central valley. Students of all ages will be participating in this exciting program that combines English language instruction with environmental education. Every child will learn about and plant their own native-species tree in an area that has been deforested. They will then be responsible for caring for their tree, and also for sharing their experiences and their learning about the earth with their classmates—in English!
Finally, this month at NatureKids we continued with our Drake Bay English on Horseback initiative. Our traveling teacher has been busy working with the kids and families of the Osa Peninsula’s remote communities, and he is happy to report that students are making great progress and are beginning to learn English as an important tool of personal and professional development.
NatureKids would like to let everyone know that we are
hiring for the 2007 school
More News:
