Eselenkei Classroom

“Experiential learning” took on a whole new meaning, as Ellen and JoAnn got down and dirty in Amboseli. This was truly the outdoor classroom come to life. As we traveled the 12,000 acres of the conservancy, Ellen collected indigenous and non-indigenous plant samples for her fellowship learning and fifth grade Science lessons. Both JoAnn and Ellen carefully examined, photographed, and catalogued animal tracks, scat, and bones. Once again our knowledgeable Maasai guides, Jonah and Emmanuel, provided useful information which will enhance our Science curriculum school-wide.

Amboseli Animals

If you want to see elephants roaming in their natural habitat, Amboseli is the place to go. The park is home to about 1,600 elephants, including 58 families and hundreds of independent adult males. Over the last 40 years, Amboseli’s elephants have been protected from ivory poaching. In many other parts of Africa, poaching has destroyed the social life and family structure of elephants by eliminating older males and females. However, in Amboseli this is not the case. It is the source of data collection on elephants’ social and reproductive patterns. It was wonderful for us to have the opportunity to see these magnificent creatures “up close and personal”.

The tallest of all African animals, the giraffe wanders without a voice, communicating through eye contact and non-verbal gestures. Giraffes feed on the top layer of acacia trees. It is not uncommon to find the “giraffe neck” antelope, called the gerenuk feasting below perched on hind legs and leaving the lower layer for the smallest of all antelope, the dik dik.

Enjoy these beautiful photos of some of our favorite Amboseli animals.

Maasai Village

Sorry for the long lapse since we’ve posted on the blog, but after returning from safari, we dove right into work at the Kilimani School. We have been busy creating a media center, teaching photojournalism to 47 fourth grade students, and cataloguing over 300 lbs of books in the school’s library. However, we took a day to rest and are now ready to pick up where we left off.

After our first cheetah sighting, we were warmly paraded in song by the Maasai morani (warriors) into the neighboring village. Immediately the villagers recognized Terri and Danielle and enthusiastically grabbed our arms and ushered us through the manyatta (group of homes) to meet new babies and take photographs of their families. Ellen, JoAnn, and Kevin got their first glimpse of Maasai village life, including dung huts constructed chiefly by women, celebratory dancing, zebra droppings as kindling, shepherding goats and cows, cleansing hollowed gourds with hot coals to store fresh milk, and much more. The chief of the village welcomed them and our stay was extended until sundown as the villagers invited us to join them in song and dance.

We left in the evening, humbled by the way the Maasai live in community and in a true symbiosis with their natural environment. We left this visit pondering the final words spoken by the chief regarding Maasai philosophy of family and community, “We have respect for a generation above and we respect, care for, and prepare the generation below.”

Amboseli - Day 1

After a hearty breakfast and goodbyes to our hosts in Nairobi, we were on our way to the Eselenkei Conservancy in the Amboseli region. One of the first memorable events was driving through a local marketplace where all the merchandise was spread about on the ground for display. The marketplace is a relatively new concept for the Maasai whose traditional diet consists of mostly milk, blood and meat from their cattle. Severe drought in this region since 2009 has forced the Maasai to engage in trade and income generating activities.

As we entered the conservancy, our first stop was at a MASSIVE harvester termite mound that likely took about 50 years to build. It towered over our vehicle and that was only what we could see! We learned that the mound continued another 7 meters below ground. The queen termite produces 50,000 eggs per day!

We arrived at the camp, greeted by our Maasai guide Jonah, who was our guide last year. He brought bracelets made by his wife as gifts for Terri and Danielle. It was a most joyous reunion. After a tasty lunch, we hopped in our land cruiser and were off to the Maasai village. On our way, we saw our first “real critter” – duma, Swahili for the elusive cheetah.

Safari Intro... More to Come!

We are back from safari and have so much to share! We had five FULL days out in the bush, experiencing two very different biomes within Kenya’s equatorial ecosystem. We spent our first 2 ½ days in the desert region of Amboseli at the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro and our next 2 ½ days in the lush Maasai Mara amidst the most diverse migration of grazing mammals on earth.

We collected over 5,000 photographs, hundreds of video clips, and countless pages of notes about the plants, trees, animals, birds, water, landforms, and people of these two regions. We have become rich in knowledge to further enhance the fourth grade study of animal adaptations and we are equipped to launch a rich study about plants, landforms, and conservation for our fifth graders.

We were so delighted to hand deliver our students’ African Animal Adaptation books to our Maasai friends who taught us last year and provided much of the information found in the books. They were overjoyed to see all that the children learned and accomplished through the books. They were touched that the children wanted them to have the books and each Maasai person “OOhed and Aahed” over each page. Our fourth graders should know that their hard work was very much adored and appreciated over 8,000 miles away!

Please stay tuned for unbelievable safari sightings and stories!

Mad Hatter says, "Let the safari begin!"

Watch for new post upon our return from safari in 6 days!

Kilmani - The VIP Legacy Begins

Our arrival at Kilimani was once again filled with tears of joy. Headmaster Benson and Teacher Nancy greeted us with open arms. Immediately, Ellen and JoAnn felt inspired and a deep warmth from and acceptance by Kilimani’s inclusive community. They were pleased to give us a tour of the campus and to share in their many successes over the year, one namely being chosen by the Discovery Channel as an exceptional Kenyan public school, given 3 flat screen TVs and a comprehensive academic video library accessible to all 1,100 students.

Another highlight came during our tour of the library and media room. Previous to our arrival, students used two laptops that FFT and the Henderson community provided last year to access the internet. However during our visit, we were able to assess some previously donated machines and develop a plan to revitalize their computer lab. We discovered that with updates and networking, the majority of the machines will have internet access. This will allow multiple students to engage in computer learning activities simultaneously as a result of VIP – The Legacy.

We joyfully ended the day by visiting the Henderson and Kilimani candlenut trees. As VIP has strengthened and grown over the past year, so have the candlenut trees. We planted them a year ago as seedlings and already they are taller than us. It was a beautifully symbolic way to begin our time at Kilimani and it left us all feeling encouraged for the work ahead.

Rested and Ready to Begin!

Our first day we tried our best to adjust to the new time, new climate, new elevation, and new tropical ecosystem! We rested and ran essential errands – getting a phone line, exchanging money, grocery shopping, and preparing for the days ahead. We made a special “American Melting Pot Surprise” dinner for our host family, complete with Chinese stir fry, Turkish meatballs, French seared snapper, Indian rice, and a special Kenyan wine. You can tell from the photos that it was quite a festive ordeal. Ellen, JoAnn, and Kevin are learning quickly that in Kenya meals last a minimum of 3 hours with rich conversation and hearty laughs!

We Made It!

We all arrived in Nairobi, full of excitement and ready for the VIP Legacy to begin! Although we were tired after our 20+ hour journey, we are thrilled to report that all of our luggage (18 VERY HEAVY pieces) arrived safely, including over 300 lbs. of Henderson School donated books ready for Kilimani's library. Enjoy these arrival photos and JoAnn & Ellen's first wildlife sighting!!

Blast Off!

Today is the day! Farewell Boston! Hello Nairobi! Even though the last couple of months have been especially full with plans and preparations for this journey, it feels completely surreal that the day is really here!

Terri and Danielle can’t wait to see dear friends at the Kilimani Primary once again and for Ellen, JoAnn, and Kevin to meet them all “face to face”. Furthermore, in a few short days, we will also be welcomed back by the Kisonko clan of Maasai people and visit their village on the Selenkey Conservancy. They will help us to study and understand the ways of life they have adopted to maintain the integrity of their land, such as fresh water projects, in the very precarious ecosystem in which they live (foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro).

We will venture on from there to the heart of the Maasai Mara where we will investigate and learn about how non-indigenous plant species are impacting the Great Migration and what efforts are being done to combat these noxious weeds.

So please stay tuned to see what adventures are in store! And as we begin our journey, which is the meaning of the Swahili word “safari”, we want to thank you for supporting us in a very successful first year of the Virtual Information Project. We’d especially like to say a special thanks to…

- Fund for Teachers for funding Ellen and JoAnn to participate in V.I.P. 2 – The Legacy and for believing in this project

- BPS Superintendent Johnson, BPS Senior Coordinator for International Programs Bethany Wood, BPS Office of Instruction Technology, and members of the Henderson School community who supported us and our students this year by purchasing African Animal Adaptation books

- All Silent Auction bidders and winners who purchased African relics and supported V.I.P. at the International Festival

- The dozens of letters, well wishes, prayers, and financial donations from our many friends and family members who contributed to our support letter campaign

- The Henderson School students and families who contributed $1,964 in spare change during our “Coins for Kenya” drive

- The Henderson School students and families who donated books to start a school library for the Kilimani School. Because of you, we will bring 300 lbs. of books with us today!

- The Lelievre family for the donation of 4 laptop computers, a video camera, and much needed computer hardware for the continuation and growth of VIP at the Kilimani School.

- All of our students who enthusiastically participated in the first successful year of the V.I.P. at the Henderson and Kilimani Schools.

- Our principal Mrs. Lampron, our School Site Council, Kilimani’s leadership team Mr. Benson Migwi and Ms. Nancy N’gotwa, and the Nairobi City Council who have “put their seal of approval” and allowed the V.I.P. partnership to flourish and take shape.

It has been a wonderful first year of the V.I.P.! Let’s see what great things are ahead!

Enjoy photos of 5th grade Coin Drive Winners, Room 7 students. Also, Terri & Danielle changing in the change!! :-)

V.I.P. - The Legacy

We are thrilled to announce that due to the great success of the Virtual Information Project this year, we will be returning to Nairobi, Kenya at the end of June to expand the project! We are excited to bring three of our colleagues along with us this summer on what we are calling V.I.P. - The Legacy. They will learn from the Kilimani School and volunteer their time and offer their talents to the project. The team includes JoAnn Brown, 4^th grade teacher; Ellen McCarthy, K-5 Science teacher; and Kevin Brown, technology consultant.

JoAnn will head-up a project entitled “Show Me Your Africa/Show Me Your America/ Show Me Inclusion”, which will engage our 4^th grade students and the Kilimani students in the process of documenting their home and school lives through photographs using disposable digital cameras and journal writing. This will allow students to document, using digital media and narrative writing, what it is to live in very different urban settings and to be a part of an inclusive community.

Kevin will spearhead technology training for the fourth and fifth grade teachers at the Kilimani School. Last year, we were able to send one teacher through a 6-week intensive IT training to learn the basics of Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. This teacher then brought this knowledge back to her grade-level colleagues and thus began the Kilimani to Henderson virtual exchange. Kevin will build on this technology training and support these teachers in how to make the technology accessible at the student level. He will also trouble-shoot issues of using a limited number of computers with a large number of students.

Ellen will lead an investigation of rural Maasai life in the Maasai Mara and Amboseli National Parks to enhance both schools’ science comparative study of temperate and tropical ecosystems, emphasizing specifically in how changes in the environment have caused some plants and animals to die or move to new locations (i.e. wildebeest migration) and how humans (i.e. the Maasai people) are interacting with the environment to ensure a species’ survival.

We are also thrilled to announce that this team will pave the way for a much larger team of students, parents, and teachers who will travel to Kenya in the summer of 2012 to meet their penpals and participate in an educational safari.

This trip is made possible in part by the GENEROUS grant funding of the Fund for Teachers. JoAnn and Ellen proposed their project for FFT funding and they have been awarded a scholarship to carry it to fruition. Dottie Engler, Boston's FFT site coordinator recently said that, "Funding the work of the Virtual Information Project may be the best $20,000 FFT has ever invested!"

We are working hard to put together all of the final details in the planning and preparation process and are knee deep in fundraising. We recently had our biggest fundraising and school community involvement event of the year - "International Festival", where families hosted tables with food and cultural artifacts representing their heritage. We had multiple events to support our V.I.P. partnership at the Festival, including a silent auction of East African artifacts.

However, the most exciting part of the evening was that we had a true celebrity in our midst! Teacher Jane Ramu, specialist teacher of deaf/blind children from the Kilimani Integrated Primary School, was with us at the Henderson Inclusion School IN THE FLESH for our International Festival! She even addressed the hundreds of parents and students in attendance and made a speech about the V.I.P. partnership on behalf of the Kilimani School. The story of how Jane came into our lives and thus to our school is truly amazing and once again resonates with divine intervention. We will keep you in suspense and share it all in our next post! :-) For now, enjoy the great photo of Jane and the 2011 V.I.P. - The Legacy team (Terri, Danielle, Jane, JoAnn, Ellen).

Check it out! African Animal Adaptation Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Here is one of the 18 unique African Animal Adaptation books, student-researched and written highlighting a total of 27 different animals found in Kenya that we talked about in our last post.

Check it out!

All photographs by Danielle and Terri with sincere appreciation to Porini Amboseli, Porini Rhino, and Porini Mara safari camps and the knowledgeable Maasai guides.

The African Animal Adaptation books are currently available for purchase. If you are interested in buying book(s) and supporting the Virtual Information Project, please email us for details at virtualinformationproject.vip@gmail.com.

They make great gifts and are an excellent addition to home or school libraries! Over 100 books currently in circulation! Thanks for your support!

V.I.P. Partnership - Alive and Well

Wow! The past 6 months have FLOWN by since we last updated the blog and SO much has happened in that time! Here’s a quick bullet-pointed synopsis of the highlights:

· We started the year off in September by showing our staff, students, and parents a mini-documentary that we compiled featuring the Kilimani-Henderson V.I.P. partnership. (You can view the documentary at: http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=209578)

The support and enthusiasm for the partnership was incredible! Parents and teachers signed up to join our mailing list and fundraising committees. The first and fourth grade classes connected around Literacy and Science units of study and shared across the grades. A group of 6 teachers came together to start planning, preparing, fundraising, and grant writing to travel to Kenya in July 2011. And, our former principal (Dr. Bill Henderson) and current principal (Patricia Lampron) starting looking for community and educational partners to support and participate with us in the V.I.P. partnership exchange.

· 86 students are participating in the V.I.P. penpal exchange (43 from the Henderson Inclusion School and 43 from the Kilimani Integrated Primary). The students wrote and received their first set of letters in October.

· In November, the Kilimani students took their field trips to the Giraffe Center, Mamba Village Animal Farm, Nairobi Safari Walk, and David Sheldrick Animal Orphanage. They filmed their experiences using the FLIP digital video recorder that we brought them this summer and uploaded them online for us to view. It was wonderful for our students to see and digitally journey along with their penpals on the field trips.

· In December, the Henderson Inclusion fourth grade students concluded their Science comparative study of Kenya’s tropical ecosystem and New England’s temperate ecosystem by writing and publishing digital African Animal Adaptation books. The students published 18 different books that focused on 27 different animals found in Kenya on www.shutterfly.com. Through the support of parents and an anonymous donor, every Henderson fourth grader was able to order a personal copy of his or her book, we were also able to order a full set for the fourth grade classroom libraries, and a set to send to Kenya for our Kilimani penpals. We have also started selling the books as part of our V.I.P. partnership fundraising campaign and have so far raised a little over $150 profit in book sales!

· In January, we sent the adaptation books to Kilimani along with another laptop computer that was donated to the V.I.P. partnership anonymously. We thank you, very generous donor!

Also in January, our Kilimani Book Drive committee got underway. We have thus far collected about 500 books for Kilimani’s library and many more are rolling in daily. Our next hurdle is to figure out the best and most economical way to get them to Kenya!

· In February, Very Special Arts, an international non-profit organization celebrating the power the arts have made in the lives of individuals with disabilities, invited representatives from both Kilimani and Henderson schools to attend their International Educational Conference from April 27-31^st to represent the Virtual Information Project. VSA is partially funding the trip for our Kilimani partners, although we are currently looking for funds to cover airfare for Mr. Benson (Kilimani Headmaster) and Ms. Nancy (Kilimani V.I.P. teacher leader).

· Last week, we sent a V.I.P. ambassador (Adam DeCosta, high school student from Lexington Christian Academy) to Kilimani School where he will volunteer with our V.I.P. Kenyan partners to fulfill his high school service requirements. We sent an LCD projector (purchased by our Henderson parents through fundraising efforts) and speakers with him for the Kilimani School. Kilimani will now be able to share digital videos from our exchange with large groups of students at a time. He is going to train the teachers on the use of the devise and share a “Welcome to the Henderson School” mini-documentary hosted by the fourth grade Henderson students during a Kilimani school-wide assembly. He will also assist with the penpal exchange and will be filming “The Arts at Kilimani” during their Drama Expose.

We are excited about the progress of the project thus far and are looking forward to the future. We are looking for more grant and funding opportunities to support our future ambitions. Our fundraising campaign continues with strong parental leadership. Our needs include:

1. Additional laptop computers to extend the virtual penpal exchange to next year’s current 3^rd graders.

2. Funds to continue Kilimani’s internet services for the 2011-2012 school year.

3. 100 digital disposable cameras and journals for “Show me Africa/Show me America/ Show me Inclusion” photography and digital narrative writing exchange project, piloted by this summer’s team of 6 Henderson Inclusion teachers proposing to go to Kilimani in July.

4. Funds to ship the books collected during our Kenya Book Drive overseas.

5. Funds to send a group of next year’s graduating 5^th graders, parents, and teachers, to Kenya to meet their penpals and participate on safari.

If you want to contact us or join our mailing list, please do at virtualinformationproject.vip@gmail.com.

FEATURED PHOTOGRAPHS:

1. Henderson 4^th grade V.I.P. participants

2. African Animal Adaptation books on display in the Henderson main foyer

3. Danielle’s sister-in-law Zipporah Ali (middle) presents Headmaster Benson and Teacher Nancy with a laptop from the Henderson School.

4. Tiffany Silva-Sanchez, Henderson fourth grade student, creates a graphic contrasting the ecosystems surrounding Nairobi and Boston.

5. Bethany Wood, Boston Public Schools’ Senior Coordinator for International Programs, visits the Henderson School to learn about the V.I.P. partnership. Student authors present her with a copy of their autographed Adaptation book.