Lewa Wildlife conservancy in Kenya has a groundbreaking Digital Literacy Programme. By kitting out schools with digital equipment, digitising curriculum material and training teachers on how to use these they have hugely increased the quality of education, and learning outcomes, for kids living in previously marginalised rural conservation areas.
In 2020 PACE started working with the DLP. They created a PACE channel containing 214 PACE conservation education resources and added this to the Lewa schools ‘intranet.’ More than 94% of PACE content links directly to the curriculum. Making it directly accessible in the classrooms means that teachers and students have a pool of rich environment and conservation content that they can and are integrating into school teaching and learning. The PACE channel is used for extra-curricular, independent student learning and school clubs as well as curriculum activities.
Through this use of Educational technology, and the innovation of Lewa’s DLP, last year more than 4500 learners and 500 teachers across 23 schools had access to relevant conservation education resources. More than 800 learners devices and 100 educator devices were accessing conservation education resources, and the impact extended beyond classrooms. In the first term alone 8 out of the 23 primary schools adopted practical projects and action sheets in their schools, that included students improving school grounds, developing school gardens and children vegetable growing.
During 2022 we are working on increasing the number of learners and schools accessing environment and conservation education resources on our platforms, including in other regions of Kenya.