PCC Geography: Mr. Lee

USE IT OR LOSE IT!

Sep 04, 2005

Photo: (c) 2005, ESSI. All rights reserved. American volunteers (with some teachers/staff and host families) in northern Thailand at the REEEPP closing banquet receiving thanks and good wishes from local teachers, students, and villagers.

Three PCC Geography students made the conscious decision to out their Geographic knowledge to use. They volunteered in northern Thailand to serve on the innovative Rural Environmental Education Enhancement Pilot Project (REEEPP). This project was the brainchild of PCC Geography professor Gregory Lee. It evolved over nearly a decade with Lee?’s first trip to Thailand in 1995. Four years later, he launched his first community-based environmental education project in Chiang Rai Province (northern Thailand) through the Los Angeles Geographical Society. The project sought to train rural Thai farmers in critical sustainable agricultural practices that reduce use of synthetic agricultural chemical herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers. Five years later, the program grew to focus on empowering small rural family farms to achieve self-sufficiency and sustainability through REEEPP.
REEEPP expanded the initial community-based environmental education model to include 3 distinct groups of trainees: farmers, teachers and students in an elementary school, and home stay host families. Since the LA Geographical Society effort, Lee moved the project to his wife?’s home village in Nan Province. Saifon Lee visited her home village and got reacquainted with her old elementary school. She wanted to give back to her community as a gesture of appreciation for her basic education that led to her college education, job, and ultimately meeting and marrying PCC professor Gregory Lee. Together, Saifon and Greg created REEEPP by integrating math, environmental science, geography, technology and English lessons with job skills, sustainable agricultural practices and small rural family farm self-sufficiency.
The teachers at the elementary school were enthused! Recent Thai government education reform was being implemented, and the teachers were hard pressed for new ideas as to what to do. REEEPP fit the bill. Since no hotels are in the village area, Saifon approached the Head Villager and Village Council requesting their help to find host families to provide home stays for any American volunteers willing to come to help with REEEPP. Lee began to recruit volunteers through his classes and the LA Geographical Society.
A large number of students expressed interest in the project. The biggest and most immediate challenge was the $1900 for the trip expenses. Later, other barriers arose: the December 2004 tsunami, and social unrest in the Thai southern provinces. Unfortunately, the general unfamiliarity of many Americans with the Geography of Thailand created a false impression that it was ?“unsafe?” to travel to Thailand. The fact that the REEEPP project site was at the northern limits of the country (a few hours from the Lao border, hundreds of miles away from the tsunami stricken coast and even farther from the troubled southern provinces) had little impact on the minds of concerned parents and prospective participants. The anticipated 30 volunteers shrank to a stalwart 7.
Despite the small volunteer team, the project succeeded in attaining all of its goals. Flexibility is essential when traveling and working in another country and culture. Plans were changed to accommodate weather conditions, availability of local villagers (they were busy planting their fields as the water came late this year), tight schedules at school due to holidays and teacher training / meetings related to the recent government reforms.
The PCC Geography students put their course work to good use. The core training used the Geographic Systems Model as the foundation for the environmental training. The Green School project taught students to properly sort recyclable materials from school and home. A monetary incentive (being paid cash via the sale of the materials to a local recycling firm) gave rise to the Trash Bank and other practical math and economics lessons about banking and savings.
The Habitat project used the Geographic Systems model to understand the interconnectivity of the habitat elements (space, water, food, and shelter). Students used this training to build habitat gardens (in addition to the flower and vegetable gardens already in place). The new training encourages them to learn and explore the use of local native plants to protect local pollinators.
Other PCC Geography lessons were used in the NASA CERES S?’COOL project that studies the role of clouds in the overall atmospheric energy balance. Two sets of lessons were taught: the NASA cloud observation / reporting protocol (e.g. cloud height / type; visual opacity, % cloud cover, and surface cover type) and the more common surface weather observations (temperature, relative humidity, wind speed / direction.
An added educational enhancement was accomplished by training the teachers how to make some of the equipment needed for these projects. A critical aspect of the project was the full integration of math, environmental science, geography, technology, and English for all of REEEPP lessons.
Cultural diversity was addressed in the home stay portion of the program. Local rural village families are not well versed in English. And none of the American volunteers knew much Thai language, let alone the northern Thai dialect of Nan Province. Both groups were prepared to give wide latitude to the other in terms of social blunders. Being open and tolerant was key to the smooth operation of the project. Amazingly, the short 4-night home stay forged deep bonds of friendship as was evidenced by the very tearful goodbyes at the end of the project.
Education takes place any time and any place you find people willing to exchange ideas and experiences. For 3 PCC Geography students, summer 2005 was a step into a larger ?“school?” of learning far beyond the classroom and from some teachers with no paper degrees or little education.

Note: See the corresponding PDF article for photo profiles of the volunteers. More detailed illustrated project reports can be found in the "Our PDFs" section at www.earthsystemsscience.org or you can use the crosslink in the "Our Hotlinks" at the bottom of the green sidebar on this site.