As you know, the key to the future is education,” is what a young boy from the Makongeni community told me the other day as I waswalking back to the camp. I immediately agreed with him but his words “As you know” stuck with me, he said it with such certainty as though there was no doubt in his mind that I knew education was the key to the future. Perhaps this is something that I know, but it made me question as to how many young Bahamians his age would share the same conviction towards education – that there was nothing more important than finishing high school and moving on to University. For those of us in the EDGE training workshop there has been no lack of mental stimulation between statistics, R, GIS, media, behavioural observation and oh did I mention statistics….. my brain has not had a chance to rest. Despite my pre-statistic fears I can say I have conquered standard deviation, the chi test and I even understand what a parametric test is and how to test for assumptions. I have accepted that this clearly is just the beginning of my newfound relationship with statistics and, as Dr. Rajan Amin has made clear, the key to conservation is solid statistics. We could not have asked for a better mentor. Taking a break from statistics we took a trip to Shimba Hills as we learned about behavioural observation. It was there that I had my first encounter with large African mammals such as giraffes, elephants and warthogs. On a safari ride driving through the reserve during the afternoon we really didn’t see anything until it started to cool down and got closer to 5pm. Despite the beauty of these wild animals, I am not ready to trade my underwater world for the grasslands of East Africa. As part of an evening lecture series each EDGE Fellow as well as the teaching team have been giving short presentations about who they are and what they do. It was my turn tonight and I was happy to talk about Young Marine Explorers (the environmental non-profit that I run in the Bahamas) and my plans of connecting Bahamian youth with coral research. What I was not expecting was to be on the verge of tears….. who really thought anyone could cry over science?….. apparently I have that special ability. This time in Kenya working with the other EDGE training participants has been an inspiring experience for me. I have always wanted to be involved in conservation science but for some reason I was taught to think that environmental education was as close to science as I would be able to handle. These past two weeks have showed me otherwise, which was why I nearly broke down into tears this evening presenting about my EDGE species Dendrogyra cylindrus. I know this EDGE Fellowship is going to launch my career as a Conservation Biologist and this is something that I am really excited about. We are getting to the end of the theory section of the course which means next week we will finally be out of the classroom and underwater where I belong.
6 Comments
8/16/2015 09:43:08 pm
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12/31/2017 01:03:56 am
That kid must be really smart for his age because he was able to say, "As you know, the key to the future is education,” with such conviction. I would also be amazed and shocked as well if some kid says something like that to me with the same way he said it. I hope that a lot of kids would have the same certainty with education with that kid that you have met. The world needs more children that believe that education is the key to their future.
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Sunny
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Thanks from <a href="http://www.cnn.com">cnn</a>.
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The Science BlogIn the spirit of scholarship and adventure my writing explores a range of topics about the ocean, conservation and Small Island Developing States. This island girl, although not always writing from an island hopes to introduce you to the fun and wild side of science! Archives
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