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My zoological work has given me a professional passion for scientific and community outreach, which I pursued via my Graduate Portfolio in Community Engagement, a supplementary co-curricular program throught the University of Georgia's Office of Service-Learning. A voluntary, non-credit, professional development program, the requirements for the Graduate Portfolio in Community Engagement included lectures, workshops, and courses in community engagement and outreach theory, practice and communication, culminating in a large-scale project.
From 2017-2020, partnered with Carrie and Dana Siegmund at Northeast Georgia Regional Educational Service Agency (RESA) on a project–based learning (PBL) plan for third-graders, focused on gorillas, with the driving question: How can our actions help protect animals? Schools participate in project-based learning plans on a voluntary basis through RESA. We dubbed this PBL, Guarding Gorillas.
The Guarding Gorillas project-based learning plan consisted of a series of steps throughout the academic year (Engage, Educate, Inspire, Empower, and Culminate), each having their own activities and goals for the students centered around gorilla-related science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM). A complete outline of the Guarding Gorilla PBL, designed by Carrie Siegmund can be found at https://sites.google.com/negaresa.org/steam/student-programming/guardians-of-the-gorillas.
In the spring of 2019, I organized a community- and campus-wide cell-phone recycling campaign entitled Guardians of the Gorillas to bring awareness to the effect of coltan (a mineral in cell-phone manufacturing) on the habitat destruction of gorillas. Four schools chose to participate in the 2018-2019 PBL: Barnett Shoals Elementary School (Clarke County), Whit Davis Elementary School (Clarke County), High Shoals Elementary School (Oconee County), and Colham Ferry Elementary School (Oconee County). I wrote (and received) grants from the UGA Office of Service-Learning and the UGA Office of Sustainability to bus two hundred third-graders to the University of Georgia to promote this effort on campus.
A total of 501 cell phones were collected and recycled. My contribution to this project-based learning plan inspired students to think about all the ways they can act as advocates for wild animals or tackle social and environmental problems in novel ways: through traditional science, journalism, art, and engineering. My experience in the diverse communities of rural Georgia and inner-city Atlanta also required that I accounted for cultural sensitivity, implicit and explicit biases, and representativeness in effectively educating these audiences (BIPOC, members of the LGBTQ+ community, etc.).
For a full copy of my Portfolio in Community Enagagement document, please email jones.e.caroline@gmail.com.
EDUCATE
I was invited to visit the third-grade classrooms to teach students about gorillas (their behavior, conservation, vocalizations, diet, geography) and share my own research. I designed an activity to let students practice being a gorilla researcher and “take data” using some videos from my gorillas at Zoo Atlanta.
Groups of students designed and created gorilla habitat dioramas and invited me in to be a “guest judge” and provide feedback on what gorillas need to be safe, happy, and healthy in a zoo and in the wild. Groups presented their habitats to the class (and me); this was most students’ first public speaking experience!
INSPIRE
Students learn about the importance of their actions (and the actions of all humans) on their environment, particularly in conserving gorillas. They recall the messages from “The One and Only Ivan”, and well as from my guest talk to segue into exposure to conservation efforts, like that of Zoo Atlanta’s ‘Gorillas on the Line’ cell phone recycling initiative: https://zooatlanta.org/conservation-action/gorillas-on-the-line/ . ‘Gorillas on the Line’ is a campaign developed by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ (AZA) SAFE (Saving Species from Extinction) framework, which prioritizes contributions by AZA-accredited zoos to wild conservation and research: https://www.aza.org/aza-safe .
EMPOWER
During the ‘Empower’ stage of the Guarding Gorillas PBL, students organized a used cell-phone collection campaigns within their schools, using their zines to promote their message, and charts to track their collection progress.
Fully ensconced in this PBL, and loving how passionate the third graders were, I decided to apply for a University of Georgia Sustainability Grant ($5000) and a University of Georgia Service-Learning Support Grant ($500) to help the students extend their cell-phone recycling initiative into the UGA and Athens, GA communities. I was awarded both.
Project collaborators and I expanded the cell-phone collection into three-month-long community initiative: February 1 to April 30, 2019. In order to bolster the students’ impact on their local community, and to assist in their efforts to make a difference in the lives of gorillas I reached out to Julia Boyle at Creature Comforts Brewing Company in downtown Athens, Chris Griffin at the Athens Clarke County Recycling Division, and Greg Albanese at the University of Georgia Tate Student Center. All organizations/venues agreed to act as partners in this initiative; locked cell phone donation boxes were placed at Creature Comforts, Athens-Clarke County Hard to Recycle Materials (CHaRM), and at the UGA Tate Student Center Information Desk.
CULMINATE
During the ‘Culminate’ stage of the PBL, students from each school wrapped-up the cell-phone collection campaign and finalized their picture and scaled bar graphs with the final number of cell phones collected.
The concluding event for the Guarding Gorillas PBL was a field trip to Zoo Atlanta on May 3rd, 2019 to see the largest population of gorillas in the United States and to drop off their collected cell phones. Staci Weich, Zoo Atlanta’s Manager of School and Family Programs and Education Advisor for the Gorilla Species Survival Plan (SSP) helped to organize a table for our students to act as ambassadors!
Collected phones were mailed to Eco-Cell, an electronics recycling company which donates money from each recycled phone to specific conservation organizations. This donation’s funds were allocated to the Dian Fossey Foundation Fund International, which conducts rigorous “boots-on-the-ground” conservation efforts with gorillas in the wild.
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