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Forest Report from Saudi Arabia

Written by the students of Dhahran School

Class or age : Middle School

Trek in a Sumatran Rainforest -
         Gunung Leuser National Park

Trek
Sumatran Rainforest Trek

Project Description:
===============

Students around the world were invited to join twenty-two middle school students and their teacher from an international school in Saudi Arabia on an exciting two-week trek in a primary rainforest area in Sumatra.


This is the group of hikers.

As Virtual Trekkies, students learned about the endangered orangutan, "the old man of the forest", and its threatened rainforest habitat. Some Virtual Trekkies have written Rainforest Poems for all to share.

Our group hiked and camped in the Gunung Leuser National Park, visited the Orangutan Rehabilitation Center in Bukit Lawang, whitewater rafted and tubed on the Wanpu River, explored a bat cave, and climbed an active volcano in the Bukit Barisan Range. We also visited the schools, homes and villages of the fascinating Batak people, joined them in song and dance, then boated, biked, and hiked around their traditional homeland, Samosir Island in Lake Toba, one of the largest and deepest lakes in Asia.


Bill Cason with the group of hikers.

Project Objectives:
==============

(correlated to National Science Education Standards)
Lake Toba
Trek of 1996 at Lake Toba



dance
An Indonesian dance on an island in Lake Toba.



burn off
Old rubber trees being burnt for a new plantation.

  • to involve students in a genuine science inquiry, focusing on the endangered orangutan and the rainforest.
  • to involve students in long-distance learning via telecomputing on the Internet as well as a local BBS;
  • to make science tools, media, and technological resources available to students.
  • to promote the concept of the student as an involved citizen both locally and globally;
  • to inspire students to take responsibility for the learning of all members of the community.
  • to foster co-operative group dynamics and interactions across disciplines and grade levels.
  • to respond to student diversity and to encourage all students to participate fully in science learning.
  • to enable students to engage in extended investigations
  • to identify and use resources outside the school
  • to enhance the professional growth of colleagues through participation in the planning and implementation of an active science inquiry.

Curriculum Connections:
===================

Our students engaged in an extensive pre-trip study of the rainforest as an ecosystem and the orangutan as an endangered species.

They examined the problems facing both the system and its species, trying to understand the root causes, and exploring positive actions that they can take to make a difference now.

orangutan
Orangutan
We decided to make the focus of our inquiry the human impacts on the ecosystem, specifically the effects of transmigration, new towns and roads, farming practices, livestock raising, logging and mining industries, as well as ecotourism.

In order to gather information that might not be readily available to our virtual audience, we decided to use the person-to-person interview as our method of field study.

There are curriculum connections in almost every discipline and across most grade levels. We wrote journals, videotaped and photographed, and carried out a few scientific field investigations that were easily done with the limited resources available to us (water and soil samples, surveys of flora and fauna that we are able to identify, or other ideas suggested by our Virtual Trekkies).

money
Some Indonesian money featuring the Orangutan

We interviewed Sumatran students and teachers, tour guides, park rangers and naturalists, hotel clerks, local farmers and villagers, transmigrants from Java, plantation managers, local government officials or village chiefs, and local and foreign tourists.

Our group welcomed questions, suggestions, encouragement, and criticism and tried to help our Virtual audience, whether it was a kindergartener or an adult, to enjoy the rainforest trek with us.

We took a laptop computer and modem with us and connected wherever possible from the field.

Timeline:
=======

November-December, 1996-

Students registered to participate in A Virtual Sumatran Rainforest Trek.

January 1- March 25, 1997-

Students sent any questions, suggestions, comments, encouragement, or criticism to our group and we did our best to respond before, during, and after our trip.

March 30- April 14, 1997-

Our group trekked in the Sumatran rainforest and visited the local Batak people.


Susannah Power and Jonathan Vea, of Sydney Australia travelled to Sumatra to take in a visit to the Gunung Leuser Ecosystem and work with the children there on scientific studies of the rainforest. Both these young Australians have degrees in Environmental Studies.

November 1997
Susannah and Jonathan stayed on to work in Medan, Indonesia, on environmental projects in the forest as this is such important work and are still working there.

Thanks a lot for your collaboration!
Bill Cason (with Mike Gordon and Barbara Dolden)

Dhahran School,
Saudi Aramco,
Dhahran,
Saudi Arabia

It is estimated that

an acre of rainforest is destroyed every second!

The contact person for this report is Bill Cason.

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This page has been visited times since 14th Nov, 1996.

Computer Co-ordinator : Judith Bennett : This page was last modified 8th Nov, 1997