Big Yellow Taxi (Counting Crows) - Thoughts on Deforestation

Strategies to Alleviate Uneven Development - Slums Networking Programme

Strategies to Alleviate Uneven Development - Asian Development Bank

Sanitation and Hygiene in Cambodia

Medical Tourism - ABC news

World Bank Report on Cambodia

Deforestation in the Amazon Basin

Dear 3R3,

Check out the link if you'd like to view the video on the Deforestation of the Amazon Basin again.

The following is the summary of the video in point form:

• Social crisis in the Brazilian Amazon
• Large scale farm producers interested in the Soy Rush --> hoping to strike it rich quickly
• The burning of the Rainforests forces the communities found in the forest to be expelled from their lands in the name of progress
• Agriculture in place of the Amazon Rainforest --> short-term gain chosen over long-term conservation
• Already, the size of France has been destroyed and at this rate the forest can be lost between 30-40 years
• This would affect the global climate and rainfall patterns
• Soy was introduced to Brazil in 1882
• New soy varieties made it possible for soy to grow well in the poor soil conditions causing plantations to expand into the northern tropical states of Brazil from 1995-2004, increasing the area cultivated by soy to increase by 77%
• In 2003, soy production was at 186 million tonnes
• In 2004 the estimated figures were at 200 million tonnes
• It is predicted that by 2020, the production of soy would hit 300 million tonnes per year
• The main producers of soy are, USA, Brazil and Argentina with USA and Brazil vying to be the no. 1 export of soy
• 26000 sq km of the forest was destroyed in 2004
• The forests that have been unexplored can generate more wealth than when used to produce soy
• With a 270 000 urban population and 63000 people in the rural areas, Santarem is at the front line for soy expansion
• Commercial agriculturalist have been buying or stealing land from traditional communities
• The problems faced by farmers after having sold their land included, lack of money and survival became difficult as they could not simply get food from their own farm
• Those traditional farmers who did not have formal title deeds to their land or refused to sell their land were in the end thugged or threatened
• In 2004, 20 homes were burned down on the 5th, 6th and 7th of November. Locals were assaulted with shotguns and had to watch their belongings burn
• Organisations involved in the peaceful protests were the Greenpeace and the Women's Association Movement
• On the 12th of Feb 2005, the Brazil Minister of Environment came to Santarem to share the good news that the government has not ignored the 5-year battle for the Rainforest by the locals and would reserve the land for the people
• During this time, an environmentalist, human activist and nun, Dorothy was gunned down for being to vocal about the issues on soy production in the Rainforest
• To these producers, the forest is seen as an obstacle. They are incapable of understanding that a forest left standing and well managed can produce greater benefits than just cattle or planting soy or corn
• Cargill, a private American agriculture company and largest in the world are responsible for developing agricultural activities in the Amazon
• They had managed to escape their environmental checks and illegally built a port for export of soy
• Their farmers had 9 Greenpeace members arrested and also assaulted the protestors
  

Thoughts on WebQuest

Creating WebQuest are an excellent way to help beginning teachers in many areas. I realise now that in teaching a particular topic, we can use WebQuest to zero in on an important section of the topic, or even get students to learn and gather information outside of their syllabus. I would think that this could be the key to creating a thinking classroom in school.

In the process of creating the WebQuest, I had to muster all past knowledge and experiences from the ICT module where I had to create a Problem Based Learning lesson using PowerPoint. I must admit that a lot of skills learnt from that module have long turned rusty.

In putting this WebQuest together, situations that would arise in school are being addressed here as well. I especially think that having to generate a rubric for the WebQuest project assessment gives me a lot of insight of what a teacher should be looking for in an outstanding piece of work and one that is not up to par.

In this particular WebQuest on river management, drawing a focus on using dams, my group decided that students should investigate the different people that would be affected by the building of a dam. We have drawn up a task sheet to guide students in their individual analysis and facilitate their group discussion.

Our objective is to let students understand the plight of the different stakeholders and come to a conclusive decision on whether building dams would be more beneficial or detrimental. Having a more open ended project, the students would have to come up with their own arguments on why the dam should or should not be built.

I feel that this technique of using WebQuest to teach does live up to the “Teach Less Learn More” scheme that the government is promoting. It is good that students would be able to see that information and education is at a click of a mouse. Hopefully, this would inspire them to seek out more information on the topics they have learnt and have more than one perspective of Geography.