A naturalist education guide.

Please see a selection of the first few pages below. To be continued…

I am currently working on a “bitácora”, a field notebook guide, for the children who visit Biota Maule. The Biota is a centre for naturalist education, investigation and ecotourism in the Maule Region of Chile, funded by the United Nations, British Embassy in Santiago, Fundación Ayacara and the ASHOKA Foundation. I stumbled upon this magical place during my travels in Chile and fell in love with it. These guys are doing what I’ve dreamed of: helping young people connect to Nature through science, art and exploration!

The founder and director of the organisation, Luis Valladares, asked me to produce a notebook that the children can fill in during their stay at the Biota, narrated by my character (“Meli”, in Spanish!), to guide them through their 3-day naturalist education programme. It will feature a map of the places they will visit and will guide their journey on the exploration of “Bosque Antártico”, the Antarctic Forest ecosystem that surrounds The Biota, nestled in the Andes mountains. There will be spaces for the children to create their characters, record their observations, design their experiments and keep their memories from their experience in The Biota.

Following the completion of this project, I aim to translate it into English and reproduce a similar style of field notebook guides for naturalist-style education in the UK.