Students and teachers share their stories about working alongside scientists in the field on an experiential learning trip to the Amazon rainforest.
By visiting our field research station, the Manu Learning Centre (MLC), students from Carolina Friends School learnt about the ecology and conservation of tropical forests, while seeing the wildlife and cultures of the Amazon in the remote south east of Peru. Here are their stories about the trip and what they learnt:
Forest Experience
“It’s breathtaking. There’s been so many times when I’ve just had to stop for at least 10 seconds. You can’t believe what you’re seeing – you see the mountains, you see an animal, or you just remember where you are. You just stop and think: I can’t believe I’m doing this.” – Luke Morton, student
Best Activities
“I’ve loved all the activities so far. Birdwatching has been incredible. We went across the river to the oxbow lake to look at endangered birds. It was incredible. One morning we actually saw a tapir, which apparently is incredibly rare. We were mist netting and we heard this lumbering thing in the forest and so we ran over and saw the rear end of a tapir.” – Ian Marks, student
Exploring & Learning
“I feel like every day you go out you learn new things from the guides because whenever you pick something up there’s all this information that’s readily available about what it is, what it eats, and it’s place in the food chain. There’s so much factual information about the forest at you finger tips. If you just ask one question then you get much more than you ever asked for, but you want to know it as it’s so interesting.” – Amey Hansen, student
International outlook
“All these people coming from their different backgrounds, from all across the world, to learn about the Amazon, the animals, deforestation, here at the MLC. I think it’s really cool to bring everyone across the world to one place.” – Marisa Rauwald, student
Respecting people
“It’s not just about coming in and telling people this is what’s right for your country and this is what’s right for the animals. You have to realise that someone lives here, it’s not just here for the taking. You can’t be: ‘I want to protect the animals but I don’t want to deal with the people.’ I guess it made me feel really good to here people talking about how they had to wrestle with that kind of thing.” – Zoe Lindsey-Mills, student
Discovering conservation
“It’s really amazing to see that places like this do exist. That you can actually work somewhere like this. That you can go out and find animals in the forest. It has also made me realise how important conservation is to me.” – Mlana Lore, student
Changing behaviour
“I need to try and read the news more and to try and learn about different things going on and different problems. I think people get wrapped up in the mainstream media and that’s hurting places like this that people really don’t hear about. I need to open up my horizons and look beyond what is in the day-to-day news. Then to be active after that and do what I can to try and help out. Even if that’s just changing one thing that I do every day; it would make a big difference if everyone did something like that.” – Ben Westland, student
Real life science
“The students learn about all these things in school and they start to understand the importance of these types of places, but it’s a totally different experience bringing them here. They can actually see it in person and experience it. They get to see what science in real life looks like and to get up close and personal with the animals. I’m sure this is opening their eyes and I’m hearing a couple of them talking about wanting to come back and volunteer here.” – Sarah Brooker, teacher’s assistant
Experiential Learning
“We very much encourage them to become the person that they want to be and how can they become the person that they want to be without experiencing a great deal. Everyone of them is different and we honour that. We honour that in the way that we teach them every day and the more experiences they have the more they can understand themselves and the opportunities that exist.” – Frances Brindle, teacher