Network for Environmentally- & Socially-Sustainable Tourism (Thailand)

The Habitats project looks at the different perceptions individuals have of the environment, and looks at how this can demonstrate how and where we interact with our environment. In the long-term, the Habitats project will help to build a greater understanding of the links between species, places, and activities.

The Habitats project comprises the following parts:

1. Children's Perceptions of the Environment

In this part, we ask children to draw pictures or other representations of their home and community. The children we work with are aged between 8 and 13. These pictures form the focus of discussions about how the children perceive their home and community, and the differences between individuals in their perceptions. Diaries are kept and resource use identified and quantified. Core skills are taught using the environment as the focus - for example, measuring volume can be taught in the context of water use by the children.

2. Children Mapping their Home & Community

In the second part, we ask children to draw maps of their communities. The children include representations for activities and for emotions on the maps. Maps are compared in small groups and the first joint "community map" is drawn.

3. Mapping Other Homes & Communities

Once the children have identified how they interact with their environment, and how they define and draw their home and community, the children take these experiences into different spheres. The children are asked to choose (in groups) any animal which they know occurs in the environment in which they live. The animal can be as large as an elephant or as small as an ant.

Once the animal has been chosen, the children work in groups to survey this animal and identify where it lives. They also monitor and record its activities over a period of one week. The information from these activities is used to draw another map for this animal. This map also includes emotions and activities for the animal.

Other representations of the way different species use the environment are also generated by the children including songs, dance, plays, stories, and pictures and sculpture. It is intended that the children will continue to monitor the presence and behaviour of the animals they have chosen.

4. Generational Differences in Community Perceptions and Interactions

The children now go out into their parents' and grandparents spheres', and, working with their first community map, ask their parents and grandparents to compare their perceptions of the environment, interactions and emotions with those of the children. This takes place in open discussions with an adult (non-community member) facilitator.

5. Historical Change in the Environment

As another step from step four, the children work with their parents and grandparents interviewing them about where they lived (if they are from the same area) when they were children, and how their home and community looked. The first map produced by the children and modified by the parents and grandparents is thus a focus of discussion on the subject of environmental change over time.

6. Combining Spheres

Finally, a combined "Habitats" map is produced showing the interactions among different community members - children, parents, grandparents, and other species.

NESSThai Archives - contains a newsletter reporting on the Habitats pilot project at a secondary school in Nakhon Sri Thammarat and an example of one of the maps the school children produced. Also contains information on the project carried out in Koh Klang and Khlong Muang Schools in Krabi province. This project is continuing with the assistance of teachers at Khlong Muang School and the assistance of the Office of Primary Education in Krabi.

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