curriculum, a resource for teachers and students to learn about how mangroves function and explore mangrove forests.

MAP collaborates with local teachers, NGOs, governments, and school districts to adapt the curriculum to their own particular realities (flora and fauna, cultures, and resource capabilities), developing their own resource materials, as well as resource guides.
 

The Curriculum provides:

• activities and information about mangroves;
• relationships of mangroves to other tropical coastal ecosystems;
• mangrove observation from social, geographical, cultural, economic, and political perspectives;
• guidance in taking scientific measurements about the health of mangroves; and
• several action-taking activities to help observers become do-ers
  
  

Goal of the Curriculum

This innovative experiential approach has the goal of transforming society toward a positive attitude and respect for mangrove resources and uses, while preparing the next generation of decision makers.

By integrating the curriculum with existing local science, social studies and/or language arts curricula, we are able to ensure that the developed materials and teaching techniques are used in the classroom on a regular basis.

Following classroom-based activities, students from East End Primary School in Grand Cayman taste-test black mangrove leaves during a field trip in order to “field test” their knowledge.

Origin and Adaptations

The 300-page Marvelous Mangroves in the Cayman Islands was developed for the Caribbean region in 1998 and linked to the local Cayman curriculum. Since then, the Curriculum has been adapted for:

• the English-speaking Colombian Caribbean islands of San Andres and Providence;
• Honduras and Guatemala (Spanish language);
• Sri Lanka, and integrated into the national science curriculum (Sinhala language);
• Indonesia (Indonesian language); and
  
• Brazil, recently translated into Portuguese; adaption underway.
  
  

Inquiries about adapting the curriculum