A Rocha Portugal: topical training for science teachers

A Rocha Portugal has run an environmental education programme for eighteen years. We welcome people of all ages to Cruzinha, our field study centre in the Algarve.

Each year we plan a special event to encourage and train local school teachers, and to build links between them and the scientific community. In April 2008 we held a two-day seminar on Coastal Zones and Biodiversity. Our own team gave presentations on a proposed management plan for the Ria de Alvor (currently under threat from damaging development); on our recent survey of the wintering birds of the Algarve; and on moth-trapping at Cruzinha. Two of the teachers reported on student projects and a scientist from the University of the Algarve spoke about the Polar Year Project.

European Storm-petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus)

Last year more than 80 teachers attended our one-day seminar on Climate Change. Dr Rob Thomas and Renata Madeiros of Cardiff University explained how their Cruzinha-based research into the diet and foraging ecology of European Storm-petrels Hydrobates pelagicus, as they migrate along the Algarve coast in June, is demonstrating that warming ocean temperatures are affecting their behaviour.

Paula Banza and Isabel Soares