The International Educators Institute is a unique week-long professional development program and Pacific Northwest field study tour. We bring together international forest researchers and the most active and successful master educators in the U.S. and abroad.
This blog will be used throughout the 2009 IEI to document our activities, discussions, and new ideas!
IEI participants, please add your first comments today (Sunday, July 12). In your first comment:
- introduce yourself
- Share your first impressions of people and place
Don't forget to sign your name to your comments - thanks! ~Angie and Rick
13 comments:
This is excellent mix of people. I am so thankful to work with people from other countries and in a great forest setting. Thank You
My name is Jackie Stallard, and I work with Project Learning Tree in Washington, DC. Today's evening exercise with the red-yellow-green dots made me realize that I don't know a whole lot about or work specifically with my local environment. Since I work with a program that is national in scope, we try to provide information and materials that can be adapted to many different places (and countries!) Creating "My Forest Profile" for the city of Washington, DC actually allowed me to learn quite a bit about the natural resources that are around me every day. I feel honored to be a part of this Institute with all of you. I hope we can learn more about each other, in addition to the environment that surrounds us here in the PNW, as the days unfold. A game of seven up, anyone? :o)
Hello IEI colleagues,
I am Deepak Tamang and I am from Nepal. I am the chief executive and Director of an NGO called Search-Neppal. I am also humbled and honored to be part of IEI as a Senior Advisor. Learning is a life long process and learning is always renewal a and and energizing process. I am happy to renew my learning all over with you all again keeping in mind that in today's dynamic and ever changing world (Learning has to be equal to or greater than the change outside in order to keep abreast with our personal and professional life).
Hope to be part of a member in this learning and renewal process to strengthen our depth of understanding as well as pushing the frontiers of learning and unlearning related to the forest and environment within the framework of SEE.
Truly,
Deepak Tamang
Search-Nepal
My name is Salomon Matchoudo, Associate Peace Corps Director in Benin (west Africa)for Environment. Congratulation to the IEI staff for the wonderfull organization of this training. This first day has been very informative and conducted in a very professionnal manner.
I am excited to participate to this training and make contact with the participants from different countries.
Good Morning fellow IEIers!
It was wonderful to meet all of you yesterday and I think we are in for an amazing week.
It was interesting to read Jackie's comments about the Forest Profile. I also felt I learned a lot completing that activity, even 'tho my local forests are the only ones I really know anything about. I hope this week to gain a more global perspective on forests with the assistance of all of you!
Everyone was so nice. I met so many people from places I've only read about. This is going to be wonderful and "wonder filled".Places to go, material to read, interesting activities and people with ideas and I could not want for more.
The activities were fun and I learned a lot about DOUGLAS FIR :>
My students are in for a treat the first week of school, after I explain the rules and responsibilities of being in my class. The CHAKRA (7 up)will be great to get them focused, something I wanted to work on with them anyway.
Hello
How is everyone after the trek downhill of Larchmountains.
It has been fun being with you all and connecting the local to the global and then local (glocalisation) of the ideas contained in the SEE will be indeed my goal.
I would also like to emphasize that the SEE in future will have a more complex P and T ELEMENTS considering the political and technological aspect both positive and negative.
DeepAK
My name is Valeria Villavicencio and I am doing Community Forest Enterprises research in Oaxaca, Mexico.
I am really thankful for all the diversity of people in this learning experience. We are having a wonderful time by sharing believes, thoughts and hope.
Mirrors tell us how much of the change that is taking place we are.
Ready for a 7 miles hike?
Valeria
HI ALL!
It was especially nice today to see the saw mill in operation and to rest in and beside the river. The salmon meal was TOO AMAZING!!!
I really appreciated seeing Mt. St. Helens again, and hearing so much more about it from Zennmaster. How DO you know so much stuff?!
Bill Wood on Monday on the falls hike was so helpful and knowledgeable. Thank you so much for bringing him along.
Can't wait for the piece` de resistance - the Canopy Crane. Yea!
Sincere Cheers from the Eldest One.
This is Ke Dong. It was really a wonderful experience for me to see the canopy in the crane today. It is a totally different world of the biodiversity in the canopy. I highly appreciate IEI and WFC to give me the opportunity to see so many interesting things in these days. I will definitely take what I have seen and my feelings back to home and share with my family, colleagues and friends.
Dear IEI colleagues,
it has been a great pleasure to share the last few days with you. We had together wonderfull time visiting some of the best forests of Oregon and Washington.
I appreciate and learned a lot from your experiences. I would like to share with you one of the main tools used by Peace Corps Benin to conduct environmental education in schools. You can have the files with Angie. Please, be aware that it is only for personal use.
Best regards
Salomon
Hello, my name is Lori La Marche. I am excited to be here and have the opportunity to be with so many people from far away places - some in the US and many around the globe. It looks like a fun week is plan and I look forward to visiting all these local places. Thanks Rick, Angie and Deepak for a great experience.
Dear IEI 2009 Participants,
I was really lucky to be part of IEI 2009! Lucky is the right word because few people can have the opportunity to come to Pacific North West of the USA to see what I’ve seen, learn what I’ve learned and share the fun we had here. I am used to walking in the huge tropical rainforest, but hiking through the Larch Mountain forest was a complete different experience. Watching the Multnomah Falls was just an exceptional experience in my life. Climbing the Mt St Helens and learning from Johnston Ridge observatory what happen here on May 18, 1980 and how American people are keeping this in memory reminded how Mount Cameroon eruptions events should be managed and its stories transmitted to the future generations. Visiting Indians from Warm Springs gave me new perspectives on what sustainability means in wood business, on how Wasco, Walla Walla and Paiute communities are facing changes regarding their relation with nature and mother Earth. For the first time of my life, watching the forest from the canopy at Wind River Canopy Crane Research Forest gave me for a short moment the feeling I have the power of commanding to the trees from my dominating position! But, unfortunately I had to climb down. For me, Portland is a peaceful place thanks to this gorgeous nature. There is no boundary between city and the nature. Portland is in the nature and nature is in Portland.
The field experience I had here really fit into the framework designed for the IEI 2009. Thank you Rick and Angie for opening our eyes and for broadening our comprehension of forestry issues! Thanks to the World Forestry Center!
Dear IEI 2009 participants, I cannot take all these for granted. I have the responsibility to payback! The few things I can do is to share this experience wherever and whenever it is possible.
With best regards,
Guy Patrice
Post a Comment