Tuesday, August 23rd
6 – 7:30 p.m.
Watch broadcast here: youtube.com/longtomwsc
Meeting background below provided by the WLTP. (Cover photo: Students of the Aves Compartidas program, WLPT)
“The Willamette-Laja Twinning Partnership (WLTP) is a bilingual peer-to-peer learning experiment developed in 2015 to bring together conservation professionals, university students, and youth. Our youth education program, Aves Compartidas, connects students in bilingual (English-Spanish) elementary schools in the Willamette Valley with students in Guanajuato, Mexico through the themes of shared migratory birds, watershed conservation, and environmental education. WLTP regularly organizes international exchanges for conservation professionals, university students, and primary school teachers.
Aves Compartidas is designed to be interdisciplinary and incorporate multicultural learning. Students are encouraged to share their personal experiences related to heritage and cultural traditions and their experiences living in or visiting Mexico. They create genuine connections with students in our neighboring country via letters and video messages. Through this program, students are connecting to real people, places, and animals. Oregon teachers involved in this program have expressed the importance and lack of such experiences for young students of color. While meeting curriculum standards in both nations, we have melded our curriculum to meet the needs of STEM in Oregon, and incorporated the culturally relevant curriculum developed by Audubon de Mexico, Salvemos al Rio Laja.
Universities in both nations are joining the WLTP, attracted to the innovative opportunities for student professional development, real world international experience, and exposure to DEI-focused community programming. As an example, the University of Oregon’s Environmental Leadership Program has partnered for highly successful student-led delivery of Aves Compartidas curriculum in dual language school, River Road, Eugene.
In addition to providing the ins and outs of the major WLTP programs, Tara, Dionné, and Jalil will highlight the educational, cultural and emotional aspects of the Partnership and how it’s binational focus has brought to the forefront the incredible opportunities for Amistad & Paz in the natural world and communities.”
Meet the Presenters:
Tara Davis, Twinning Program Coordinator Tara has worked in conservation for 16 years focusing on river restoration as well as non-profit management and fundraising. A fourth generation native to the USA’s West Coast, she received a Bachelor’s Degree from Santa Clara University, California in Environmental Science and a Masters in Water Resources Management emphasizing watershed health in developing nations from the University of New Mexico in 2006. In Oregon and abroad, Tara has worked with several diverse civil society organizations including affordable housing, federal wilderness area designation, private land protection, and river restoration. Tara’s Masters research enabled her to work closely with conservation groups in Rio Laja basin in Guanajuato, Mexico. Over a decade later, this work has transformed into the bi-national Wlilamette-Laja Twinning Partnership.
Dionné Mejía, Willamette Basin Program Instructor Dionné Mejía is one of the program instructors for the Willamette- Laja Aves Compartidas program. Dionné is a first generation Mexican-American from Southern California and she earned her M.S./B.S. in Ecology at the University of California San Diego in 2016. Currently, she works as an Ecological Education Coordinator at Institute for Applied Ecology in Corvallis, Oregon. As a lifelong lover of insects, Dionné has studied arthropods that inhabit rotting cactus in the Sonoran Desert, dung beetles in Costa Rica, and pollinators in the Oregon Coast Range.
Augustín Madrigal, Laja Initiative Coordinator Agustín is the Director of Salvemos al Rio Laja, leader of the Laja Initiative as well as the formation of the Willamette-Laja Partnership. Salvemos al Rio Laja has performed large-scale watershed restoration in high priority zones of the Laja. Agustin has close relationships with Laja’s rural communities to deliver cooperative conservation and economic development.