August 2022 Newsletter
CONAPAC and the Morpho Institute Working Together
A Word from CONAPAC Partner, The Morpho Institute
From Guest Columnist Christa Dillabaugh, Program Director at Morpho
Is Amazon conservation through education even possible? Here at the Morpho Institute, we believe it can be! As a small U.S. nonprofit, the Morpho Institute was created to support the critical role of education in realizing the global goal of Amazon conservation and sustainability. To achieve this goal, we provide professional development programs and curriculum resources which support local to global environmental stewardship in K-12 instruction. To achieve this goal, we partner with scientists, educators, and NGOs to provide transformative educational experiences for teachers and students.
Our mission and the success of our work depend on partnerships and collaboration. CONAPAC is one of our most valued and long-term partners, and without their on-the-ground work in Peru, our programs would not have nearly the impact! Through our collaboration with CONAPAC, we connect U.S. educators to the conservation initiatives of Amazonian communities and schools, which provide rich opportunities for learning about sustainability while being inspired by persistence, resilience, and hope.
We are so excited to expand our partnership with CONAPAC and are thrilled that Megan McDaniel (one of our alumni!) is at the helm. Plans are already being hatched for bigger and better projects that will amplify the work and impact of Morpho and CONAPAC.
We have no doubt that together we can harness the power of education for Amazon Conservation!
Christa Dillabaugh
Director, The Morpho Institute
A Word from our Executive Director, Megan McDaniel
You never know how chance encounters will change you!
If it had not been for a chance encounter with charismatic environmental educator, Al Stenstrup, I might not have ever met Christa Dillabaugh and experienced our beautiful Peruvian Amazon. In 2014, as a high school science teacher, I traveled to Explorama Lodges to participate in a professional development opportunity, the Educator Academy in the Amazon, led by Christa and the expert team with Morpho Institute. This first experience, those first ten days of my travels to Peru, changed my life. At the time, I hoped my experience would also provoke change in my students. Little did I know then that I would be traveling to Iquitos and Explorama Lodges many times with Morpho Institute, including leading two of my own student groups, and as a volunteer for CONAPAC. And now, I have the great privilege of living in Iquitos and working with CONAPAC and our fantastic partner communities and international partners.
Visiting Llapacha was coordinated through us as a Community Connection Project (formally called Community Service Projects). Michel and I partnered with Llachapa’s secondary school directors, specifically with the upper high school grades. On the day of the visit, Llachapa students were the experts on their community's natural history, organisms, and surroundings, sharing this knowledge with the teachers in the Educator Academy. Academy participants learned about trees, birds, insects, and mammals, as well as planted medicinal and fruit trees, shoulder to shoulder with Llapacha students.
Field experts from Morpho Institute and Explorama naturalist guides also participated, lending a hand while allowing the Llachapa students to drive the teaching, and doing a lot of learning themselves. Afterward, Academy participants expressed the value of learning directly from students. Many also said the experience has inspired them to create opportunities for their students in the U.S. to feel like experts in their regional ecosystems.
This sentiment, in a nutshell, is the power of programs like the Educator Academy in the Amazon.
Another tradition of the Academy is for each class to donate the amount needed to symbolically adopt a school, just as many of you reading this do every year. This tradition continued this July as the Academy pooled money together, motivated by a passionate storyteller among the group, Grace, who took the lead on the collection. All told, the Academy raised more than the minimum.
We had a few Academy participants who donated the amount on their own, even before they arrived, and several who mentioned having fundraisers for their schools to also donated to Adopt-a-School after they returned. I feel this year’s Academy participants will give more to our program and our partner communities than ever! With all that teachers do, we appreciate the extra distance alums of the Academy go and have gone over the years.
Important Partners
Organizations like Morpho Institute are important partners for CONAPAC, as our missions are aligned through conservation education. It is a privilege to continue this partnership! I sincerely hope our continued organizational relationship with Morpho will augment our education programs for our partner communities. We are already discussing new ways to partner and work together for the good of all involved.
Speaking of our partners, our relationship with the Detroit Zoological Society will also be expanding this year, specifically in conservation and conservation education. We are also working on some new and exciting possibilities with other organizations– new and already-established partnerships! Stay tuned as we share how these come together!
Megan McDaniel
Exectuive Director, CONAPAC
