| Children are the future of the country. If they are properly guided towards protecting the environment, that is the beginning of an environment concerned generation. In order to achieve this goal, FOGSL designs and carries out workshops for students of selected schools. These workshops are carried out in the Sinharaja World Heritage Site. | |
| On 15th of May, FOGSL education officer, Chandralal was waiting at Kudawa with Susantha Sanjeewa and Pradeep Suranga to welcome a group of students of Aggbodhi National School Kantale.
They reached Kudawa at 7.30 p.m. The group consisted of twenty students and five teachers. Their luggage was transferred from Kudawa entrance to Martin’s Lodge by a lorry. The group started to walk from Kudawa to Martin’s Lodge in the dark with the help of Chandralal, Susantha and Suranga. After having a rest and the dinner at Martin’s Lodge they gathered for the introduction lecture which was conducted by Prof. Sarath Kotagama explaining objectives and the schedule of the workshop. Students as well as teachers were grouped into four groups and each of these selected a name of a bird as their group name. |
 |
 |
Every morning after tea, all took part in meditation for a few minutes. This was to practice concentration.
The workshop consisted of several lectures as below.
|
| There was a very important presentation by Prof. Sarath Kotagama on the use of polythene and harmful effects of it. This made students to look at use of environment friendly materials for the day-to-day life in a new perspective.During field visits, they observed the diversity difference in different forest areas; primary forest, secondary forest and Pinus plantation, diversity of fish species in different streams and studied about pitcher plants and insects trapped in them. Bird watching was one of the major activity which created much interest and children spent considerable time on it during mornings and also in the daytime, while doing field work.
This was a great experience for them since they were from Dry Zone and have never visited forests such as Sinharaja before. They enjoyed their leisure time immensely by bathing, walking along the forest paths and taking photographs. They were so happy about the workshop, the cool, shady, green environment and the hospitable environment at Martin’s Lodge. Field work, engaging in group activities, observation, discussion, questioning, gathering the knowledge, writing field notes, report writing, facing challenges were some of the skills students developed during the workshop. Silence and safety in the forest are some of the new things they experienced. They worked hard to produce the final report. This improved skills in group working, sharing of data and information, discussing problems, ability to listen to other’s views and ideas, data organizing and report writing. They said “We were here for only three days, a very little time of our lifetime, but during this short period,we learnt a lot, we learnt something new, something completely different from what we used to learn. We experienced a completely new, different environment and we love this change from Dry Zone to Wet Zone a lot. We were really lucky to come here at least for a few days. This workshop changed our minds to care about the environment because through the workshop we could realize how important our environment is” When they left Sinharaja Rainforest they said “When we came to Martin’s Lodge in the dark on 15th, we thought why we came here. It was so hard. But today, the 18th, after three days, we are leaving Sinharaja feeling so sad to leave behind something extremely valuable, something that we would never be able to find and feel elsewhere. We all feel if we could stay here a few more days………” |
|