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Teaching

Incorporating Environmental/Ecological Education Into Your Teaching Research Paper

November 11, 2021 by Essay Writer

As a part of an effective teaching process, it is important to integrate environmental factors so that learners can have a test of reality.

When constructing a plan of your lesson, it is relevant to take into consideration the problems affecting the local community and authenticity of the curriculum of the school you are teaching and traditional practices that might affect your teaching. As part of preparation, it is important to take into consideration intellectual and moral levels of learners. A lesson that is considered to be successful is one that attains the expectations of a given school curriculum.

It incorporates, critical and creative thinking, learners own inventions, cooperation in the learning process and encouraging questioning. In this lesson I am going to discuss about organizational networks that are working towards sustainability of the coastal region of Trinidad and Tobago.

Issues of environmental management in Trinidad and Tobago along the coastal regions have become a major concern among several organizations. The coastal strip is a big hub of economic activities that benefits the whole country as well as a home to diverse marine and terrestrial vegetation.

Fish processing companies, infrastructure developers, residents compete for the scarce resources along with birds, and aquatic animals. Rice farmers are invading farms along the conserved Navira mangrove swamps to expand their plantations. Land is being cleared for economic benefits that include tourism, real estate and industrial development. Therefore, this implies that the economy of Trinidad and Tobago depends on full utility of coastal resources.

In this lesson, we are going to propose ways through which individual, groups and institutions can do to ensure conservation of the environment. At this point of the lesson, students would be given a chance to participate in discussion about how these stakeholders can participate to conserve the environment.

The discussion is going to be open with no preconditions from resource management authorities and views are going to revolve around conserving the environment.

Government authorities concerned with environmental conservation are likely to succeed if they devolve their powers by enabling individuals and groups to participate in ecological preservation, which calls for wide participation and the need for organizations to expand their networks.

The success of environmental conservation would also be dependent on collaboration of several institutions at different levels. Research has revealed that, when several institutions combine their findings and resources, an inclusive approach would be realized.

Authorities concerned with environmental conservation should draw a plan to include participation of all stakeholders when drawing their framework. In the framework, roles of all stakeholders should be stated that include the local community, formal and non formal organizations and government regulation authorities.

In this approach, all stakeholders in the framework are interviewed to come up with solutions of environmental conservation. The participants to be interviewed include government authorities concerned with urban planning and development, industrial fish regulators and other agents through participation in seminars of ecological preservation.

Findings from the seminars are analyzed to find the best approach to tackle environmental degradation using an inclusive approach of all stakeholders. The benefit of this approach is to appreciate efforts of community institutions to facilitate implementation of practical solutions to resource management and environmental conservation.

The idea of collective responsibility seems to offer inclusive participation in environmental conservation along the coastal region. Practically, collective responsibility has proven to provide solutions to environmental and resource management which is achieved through setting up guidelines for attaining collective action.

Through this approach, some ideologies have arisen and have been agreed upon that include: The size of a group can determine the success of agreed actions, groups with few individuals are more likely to agree on issues than groups with more people, hence, smaller groups have a higher tendency to succeed.

Secondly, groups that are characterized with inequality are likely to make poor collective actions. Lastly, for group actions to succeed, alternative benefits ought to be introduced to ensure all the desires of members are met.

Another threatening factor to the environment along the coastal regions of Latin America is increasing levels of emission of carbon dioxide.

The global trend of emissions has been amazing and anticipated effects might be worse than expected. In spite of the fact that effects are felt globally, some areas are likely to be worst affected. Trinidad and Tobago is likely to be affected by carbon emissions because of instability of the nation in terms of national capital and depletion of climate sensitive ecosystems.

Thorhaugh (445) wrote that, “Authorities have been doing their best to ensure that adaptation measures are put in place to deal with sudden climatic conditions since mid nineties.” This program has focused on sensitive climate hotspots in the coastal region.

When carbon dioxide emissions increase in the atmosphere, it increases the of ocean chemistry which in turn impacts negatively to natural characteristics of the coastal ecosystem, thereby changing the environment. As a result, the nation is at risk of losing marine biodiversity and shore borders. When surface temperature of the sea increases, it poses a big danger to existence of coral reefs.

A combination of increased temperatures and carbon emissions increase the acidity of sea water converting them to weeds of rubble. Wetlands would be affected by climatic changes that come along affecting its natural duty of curbing floods, protecting storm, stopping erosion and acting as historical sites (Halpin, 10).

Wetlands are already facing danger due to invasion by land users who want to benefit themselves. Rampant deforestation and pollution has accelerated the effects of climatic distraction. Increasing use of land poses a danger to the ecosystems ability to sustain normal weather conditions thus worsening climate effects along the coast.

A rise in the sea level could threaten fresh water due to displacement, thereby posing a danger to fresh water habitats. Dependants of fresh water could be affected because of the effect associated with feeding. Business would go down among people who rely on fish because of adverse effects of the environment affecting fisheries.

Authorities along the coastal regions have come up with activities that would help resist climatic impacts that include the following: Instituting measures that make sure that people adapt to wetlands. Several human activities such as agriculture, industrialization are put on watch as a major threat to the coastal environment. Wetlands perform a critical role in the economy over a wide circumference hence, the need to protect it.

Changing direction of rivers would affect physical existence of the swamps, resulting to negative impacts of the economic activities. Due to the fact that coral reefs support most marine animals, authorities have proposed measures for adaptation of climatic impacts along the coast (Hallock, 360).

According to Gascon (790), “Nariva Ramsar is the biggest wetland in Trinidad and Tobago with a variety of features that characterize all types of swamps. It is home to many species of birds and trees.” Based on the importance of this area, the government has offered protection to this area as one of the most important ecosystems in Trinidad and Tobago.

The protected area is almost sixteen thousand hectares though the real wetland covers around seven thousand hectares. The remaining cover serves to protect the inner wetland. Gascon (792) wrote that, “Nariva has varied vegetation that includes a normal forest and swampy forest.”

Navira is the sole protected marine area in Trinidad and Tobago. It is situated at the centre of growing tourism industry, with almost forty thousand tourists visiting the area each year to view the beauty of the reefs. At the moment, the only threat is sewerage and pollution from farming activities.

The government and World Bank support initiatives that are geared towards conservation of Nariva by recognizing the benefits it offers as a carbon sinker and a unique ecosystem. Restoration would come with more benefits like reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and conservation of unique species of birds and plants.

Total restoration would lead to reduced effects of thunderstorm, because of the nature of wetlands to arrest them. As we move on with our daily activities, there is need to step up measures to protect coastal environment and its image in order to protect the marine and avoid adverse effects of climate change (Spieler, 1014).

There is need to combine traditional methods of conservation of environment and modern systems such as carbon sinking. Integration of these methods would provide practical approaches of environmental conservation and awareness.

Works Cited

Gascon, Miller. Space utilization in a community of temperate reef fishes inhabiting small experimental artificial reefs. Canadian Journal of Zoology. 60:798-806. 1982.

Hallock, Peter. Coral Reef Decline: Research Exploration 9(3):358-378. 1993. Print.

Halpin, Treml. Spatial Ecology of coral reefs. California: ESRI Press. 2002: p 11-23

Spieler, Rene. Artificial substrate and coral reef restoration: What do we need to know to know what we need? Bulletin of Marine Science 69(2):1013-1030. 2001. Print.

Thorhaugh, Anders. Large scale sea grass restoration in a damaged estuary. Marine pollution Buleltin. 18(8): 442-446. 1987. Print.

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