March 2020
Guardians news
We empower a movement of Guardian of Nature children and teachers through collaboration and collective impact
Beach Clean-up
Garza Beach
Garza Beach Clean-up:

Green Wolf + Guardians =  💚

It was an honor to work in collaboration with Green Wolf CR last weekend. More than 45 volunteers of all ages joined to collect microplastics and a large amount of solid waste at Garza Beach, Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

Thanks to the families of Del Mar Academy and Casa de las Estrellas schools for their participation. Collaboration and active participation are essential to change the direction of humanity. Thanks to @anabanana_cf for the photos.

Guardian Challenges
Microplastics

Microplastic Challenge:

Guardian high school students teach the younger ones about the microplastics problem and invited them to join their effort to make a change. Together they collected microplastics with the goal of creating a beautiful artistic mural that helps to bring an awareness about this problem. Do you want to join this challenge?

Thanks to the parent led Environmental Committee at Del Mar Academy for supporting this process.

Environmental leadership
Nicoya's Regional Director, Ministry of Education
Environmental leadership:

Mrs. Clara Espinoza is the director of the Nicoya School District, which oversees 8 educational circuits, 169 schools and more than 7,000 students.

It is a true honor that the regional district that Mrs. Clara leads serves as a laboratory for our Guardians of Nature initiative.

Mrs. Clara's incredible love, mysticism and leadership continues to drive change and inspires the educational community.

We will be working closely together to train supervisors, principals and teachers, promote the Guardian Challenge within her district, and collaborate to implement the Guardians of Nature teachers awards as part of the district year-end awards while continuing to promote sustainable changes in the education system.

We thank the Minister of Education of Costa Rica, Mrs. Giselle Cruz Maduro, for creating a commission who will promote and strengthen our work together, so that the good practices that we systematize in this district are now, and in the future, adapted and replicated at a national level.

Expanding our regional impact
Central America and the Caribbean
Eco-education:

During the first conference on eco-education for Central America and the Caribbean, held at Antigua Green School from February 21 to 24, we had the opportunity to learn a lot from our colleagues in Central America and the Caribbean on issues of sustainable development in education. Additionally, our Executive Director (Jessica Sheffield Zamora) had the opportunity to share the Guardians of Nature experiences and educational platform.

Del Mar Academy students, together with the coordinator of our Expeditionary Program, Lissa Eidelman, presented the many benefits and the lessons learned that help to propel these programs.

It fills us with joy to see the seeds for the care of nature being spread throughout the educational system of the region.

Thanks to the Antigua Green School and the director of Del Mar Academy, Dr. Gabriel Maldonado for coordinating this meeting.
Chimaltenango, Guatemala:

We visited a school like no other. In the community of San Juan de Comalapa in the department of Chimaltenango in Guatemala, there is a school created almost entirely of recyclable materials, where the children pay their monthly tuition by bringing an eco block (bottle full of non-recyclable plastic). This community, like many in Latin America and the other parts of the world, don’t have proper waste disposal methods, so trash ends up in rivers or is burned in front of their homes. Here they found a creative way to give them a new use.

Matt Paneitz started this project after being a volunteer in the Peace Corps when he fell in love with Guatemala and its people.

We learned so much during our visit and we are glad that their teachers will be using the lessons and all the material in the Guardians free educational platform, to strengthen the environmental education work in their classrooms. You can visit their project at  lwhome.org
Workshops
Composting Workshop
Composting Workshop:

Composting workshop for the Nosara community by our @mileniotres allies. Approximately 50-60% of our waste is organic. Utilizing waste to create compost provides environmental, economic and social benefits to communities.

Find the Millennium Tres compost tumbler and our illustrative guide on how to create organic compost in our educational platform.

Our allies from Super Nosara are not only eliminating single-use plastics, they have initiated a training program to make compost with fruit and vegetable waste collected from their supermarket. People from Nosara are becoming agents of change.  

@mileniotres.

Cooperation Agreements
Guardians of Nature - Ministry of Education of Costa Rica
Cooperation Agreement:

We are very excited about our visit with the institutional commission, created by the Ministry of Public Education (MEP) of Costa Rica. Our goal was to elaborate the work agenda following the commitments of the GUARDIANES-MEP cooperation agreement.
By coordinating our efforts we empower teachers and students to be
Guardians of our natural resources and promote sustainable school campuses.

This commission is made up of the following people:

Mr. José Pablo Zárate Montero, from the Student Life Department.
Mrs. Silvia Guevara of the Curriculum Development Department.
Mr. Luis Guillermo Badilla Sojo of the Professional Development Institute
Projects
First Nature for Debt Swap Costa Rica - United States

We participated in an exchange of experiences with projects financed, thanks to
the First Nature for Debt Swap between Costa Rica - United States, which allowed
us to work with more than 2000 students from 20 schools in Guanacaste and create the Guardians free educational form.

We would like to thank the Association Costa Rica por Siempre and our allies at The Voice of Guanacaste.
Joining efforts
Local entreprenours:

During the month of February we had the pleasant visit of José Mario and Adriana, entrepreneurs from Hojancha. Through the Guardians of Nature, we are able to
support their interest in bringing environmental education to the area through their “English and Nature Club” project where they want girls, boys and young people to strengthen their English while participating and learning sustainable development practices.
Visit our educational platform where you'll find more than 100
FREE, DOWNLOADABLE
Spanish environmental education materials
Send us a pictures of your class using the Guardians lessons at:
info@movimientoguardianes.org
Use this hashtag when posting pictures of children and teachers
doing actions to protect nature
#GuardianMovement
VISION
Achieve a change in Latin American educational models for sustainable human development.

MISSION
Empower children and teachers to be guardians of our natural resources by providing free environmental education tools, fostering experiences and promoting green school campuses through the collaboration and collective impact of the government, the private sector and civil society.