This year's edition of Pantanal Adventura Sonora built on the previous two years' success with an even more ambitious curriculum. With a focus on understanding ecology and biodiversity through the concept of a soundscape, students enjoyed crash courses in the physics of spectrograms, contemporary music notation, and Pantanal ecology, then took all this out in the field for extended listening and improvisation excercises in nature. It all came together with an exciting concert on the banks of the Cuiaba River weaving natural sounds and student's instruments into one sonic experience.
Since trash incineration in areas in and around the Pantanal is decentralized and inefficient, we are designing a trash incinerator that is both fairly easy to build and burns waste with high enough temperatures to minimize environmental impact. By building these incinerators in strategic, public locations and providing information on what can be burned, we can reduce the amount of pollution that occurs from low temperature and improper incineration. Testing of different incinerators will occur in Ann Arbor before a more finalized design is implemented in Brazil.
People in the Pantanal use gas-powered generators for basic needs such as food and electricity. This year, we designed and plan on constructing three different solar ovens to decrease the resident’s dependence on power that is harmful to the environment. We will test each solar oven to determine which one best fits the needs of the residents with respect to cooking traditional foods, such as bread. Once we select a solar oven we can work on optimizing the device and transitioning it for community use. Depending on the design, we may be able to show members of the community how to build it themselves and we will then teach them about solar energy. The solar oven should allow community members to cook in a fun and environmentally friendly way.
Indigenous peoples possess cultures and customs that support the conservation of natural resources and the environment on their lands. The Xingu Indigenous Park in the northeastern part of Mato Grosso, Brazil, is an area where some 14 indigenous peoples live in villages, still speaking their own languages and practicing their own cultural rituals. We installed small solar panel systems on schools at two Kalapalo villages, so that lessons in their own language could occur at night, allowing kids and adults in the community to continue their cultural traditions during the day. This project builds on previous Juara projects that provided electricity for a small school and a health post in remote indigenous communities in the Pantanal. Collectively, these projects support indigenous communities’ autonomy and agency to protect the natural systems on land that historically rightfully belongs to them.
Board member and violinist Alex Carney hit the road with Instituto Ciranda and the Youth Orchestra of the State of Mato Grosso, holding masterclasses for young violinists in Cuiabá and Rondonopolis. Alex additionally assisted as a guest string instructor with rehearsals in both cities, as well as in Poconé. It was a chance for students to expand their musical ideas, get additional help with technique, and learn more about ensemble playing. Alex has guest-taught with Instituto Ciranda for many years now, and is always excited to see the progress students have made each year.
Building on last year's success with the inagural Pantanal Adventura Sonora, we brought a new group of 25 Instituto Ciranda music students out to PCER for four days to learn about the pantanal and use the sounds of nature to inspire new compositions and improvisations. We began each day with nature walks, helped students find and identify individual species they were hearing, rehersed and experimented with new sounds on our instruments, and finished each day with a jam session around the campfire. At the culmination of this project the musicians performed a semi-improvized musical portrait of the pantanal for the students at the Escola Porto Jofre and completed a survey on environmental attitudes. Later in July, board members Ethan Shirley and Alex Carney presented a research paper on this project at the 2018 International Society for Music Education world conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, entitled Using music to teach ecology and conservation: a pedagogical case study from the Brazilian Pantanal.
We will strive for three pillars of our project: inclusivity, engagement, and open-endedness. Our project will consist of teaching at least 4 small group lessons preferably to around 5 or 6 students. These lessons will be on different music fundamentals, percussion progressions, and basic chords for the guitar. We will also host collaborative music sessions where locals, other Pantanal Partnership members, Juara members, and we can create music together and hang out. These collaborative music sessions will create new bonds between our members and the local community. Furthermore, an engaging activity such as everyone contributing to the composition of a piece will turn music education into music experience, even for novice musicians. Lastly, the project’s open-endedness will encourage students to think outside the box and ultimately entwine students’ thoughts or experiences together.
In Brazil, universal healthcare is free and guaranteed to everyone. However, in rural areas, it is still very difficult for people to get medical attention primarily due to poor access to government services. Some rural communities have health posts, which are largely manned by nurse technicians. The challenges for care at these rural health posts are numerous: technicians lack the training and qualifications to administer some medications and diagnose complicated cases; infrastructure challenges mean medical supplies are limited, building facilities are often neglected, and it is often a difficult journey to the health post for patients. However, there is a national telemedicine network that has successfully improved treatment across the country in rural areas by connecting rural health post technicians with doctors in federal hospitals via the internet. This year Juara installed solar panels at the health post in Bahia dos Guató community, providing electricity for the first time, and facilitated training for the current nurse technician. In 2019 we are excited to assist in connecting to the internet and into the national telemedicine network, which would make it the first connected health post of its kind in the Pantanal.
Among the key tenets of successful management of natural resources is community involvement. Now in the Pantanal local people, ecotourists, and school groups alike are contributing to a longitudinal survey of the animal and plants spearheaded by Juara. In 2018 Juara set up camera traps and coordinated the distribution of sighting checklists within local, ecotourism, and school communities in which plant and animal data are collected together. These data will help scientists better understand the populations of cryptic animals, such as ocelots, jaguarundis, and tayras. These data can also provide an opportunity to study patterns of activity and population flux, which can help us understand humans’ impact on the animal populations in the region.
Access to electricity is one of the most fundamental ways to improve everything from education to healthcare to food security. But in the Pantanal, where communities are small and separated by large expanses of wetland, it’s a very non-trivial challenge. Grid access is expanding, but putting in new lines is very expensive, and often goes down at the extremes of the network. Solar power is great for small systems, but difficult to scale for an entire community. Most people rely on small diesel generators, but this requires constant time-consuming and expensive trips to the city to refuel. To address these challenges, Juara supported a Michigan student-led project to better understand how to improve energy access in the pantanal. In several communities of ribeirinhos and traditional peoples, we surveyed people’s energy needs and usage patterns. We interviewed community leaders to understand if a single shared system could work instead of individual access. In several places, we discovered that the existing grid is not as far off as we thought, and worked with the local power authority to understand what it would take to extend it further. As we continue working in these areas in the future, we now understand how to tailor our approach to the unique needs of each community.
In partnership with the Ciranda Institute, and as a continuation of our Pantanal Music Exchange initiative, we brought about 20 young musicians out to our field base (PCER) for three days to better get to know this important part of their region and to take inspiration from the sounds of nature to create new pieces of music. Each musician picked out a bird, recorded its sound, transcribed the sound in musical notation, then worked to write something new inspired by these sounds. Throughout the project we also taught about the ecology of the Pantanal, the conservation challenges it faces, and details about the specific birds used for inspiration.
In the months since this project we've been working together with the Ciranda institute to combine many of the short compositions into one complete piece of music. The Orquestra Sinfonica Ciranda Mundo plans to perform this piece in Cuiaba in 2018 as a multimedia experience with photos and video from their time in the Pantanal. In the future we hope to repeat this project on a larger scale and in other ecologically important regions of Brazil as well.
For the past year the Juara Foundation has partnered with the Ciranda Institute, a state-wide youth music program in Mato Grosso, to provide regular year-round music lessons to the children at the Nazaré orphanage in Poconé. Starting October 2016, we've moved into a larger space at the Poconé SESC (SESCs are community and cultural centers found throughout Brazil) and now offer lessons to other local children alongside the children from Nazaré! Over the next year we plan to grow the program up to as many as 60 students. In addition to reaching more children, this expansion continues to develop our partnership with the Ciranda Institute. In addition to weekly lessons, music students of Pantanal Music Exchange will play recitals, study theory, have end of term progress exams, and will have the opportunity to move up into the state-wide youth orchestra as they advance.
Studying the Pantanal’s climate and flooding patterns is currently difficult due to lack of data about the area. Unlike in the U.S, many rivers water level are not monitored nor are weather stations common in the Pantanal. For this project we hope to fill one of these data gaps by designing and constructing a water height measuring system and installing a weather station at the school in Porto Jofre.
This project will begin to build a dataset that can be used by future scientists to study the area. The flood plane data will be shared online and the weather station’s data will be shared on Weather Underground so anyone can access it.
This summer we hope to reach new river communities in the Pantanal and begin to build a relationship. By building these new relationships we can better understand the Pantanal as well as the wants and needs of the community members. Based on this improved understanding we can work with the communities to improve their lifestyle through sustainable technology.
In order to gain trust from the communities we will be providing solar powered lanterns to each community we wish to build a partnership. Based on interactions with river communities in the past, those without access to electricity would benefit the most from improved lighting. Currently, locals use candles or kerosene lamps (which are carcinogenic), to provide lighting. Improved lighting has been shown to increase productivity which is important for students that can only study in the evening.
In remote communities along the Paraguay river, electricity is typically only available via generators and boated in diesel fuel, which is both dirty and expensive. This past summer, Juara sent a team of three engineering students from the University of Michigan to spend several weeks in the river community of São Lourenço and the Fazenda (ranch) Dois Corações providing solar powered lanterns and a larger solar refrigerator system. Lanterns are important for both safety and access to reading and education, and refrigeration enables a safer and healthier diet. After initial installation, the team spent time better getting to know the people in these communities, teaching use and maintenance of the systems, and learning how to adjust the project to best meet local needs. We’ll be back on the Paraguay River in 2017 to study the use of these technologies over the past year, and to continue to expand access.
Board members Chris and Ethan, with the assistance of student volunteers, taught CPR and emergency first-aid lessons in communities across the northern Pantanal. These lessons reached ambulance workers in Poconé, service providers at APAE (a residential treatment facility for children with disabilities) and members of the ecotourism industry in the Pantanal, including boat drivers and tour guides. Rural hospitals and remote fazedas are often short on experienced staff, and this training is crucial when doctors and full-service hospitals could be several hours away. During these lessons, students viewed a video (dubbed in Portuguese) produced by the American Heart Association. Chris and Ethan supplemented this video with additional instruction and facilitated practice using CPR dummies. Finally, Chris, Minna, and Julien developed and delivered a new presentation to teachers in Cangas describing common mental health issues, with the overall aim of reducing the stigma of mental illness as a character deficit.
During 2016 the Juara Foundation, with help from numerous teachers and the local Secretary of Health, was able to broaden their healthcare and language education outreach programming to address new areas, both geographical and conceptual. Next year we will continue to refine our approach and hopefully expand our curriculum to new schools and new targeted groups. Father out in the extremely remote parts of the Pantanal, where the nearest doctor can be a full day's journey away or farther, we're also researching the possibility of installing telemedicine clinics. These would use technology to connect people over an internet connection with doctors in real time to provide life-saving medical advice and diagnoses.
This past summer, University of Michigan student volunteers Minna Wybrecht, Julien Heidt, and Eli Levia combined to develop and deliver multiple lessons to various communities in the Pantanal. Eli, Minna, and Julien traveled to public schools in Poconé and Cangas, Mato Grosso and also spent time each weekend teaching at a one-room schoolhouse that serves a rural community living at the Jofre Velho ranch. Lessons covered public health topics, including dietary health risks like diabetes and hypertension, and experimentation around proper hand-washing technique.
This student group displayed many strengths over the course of the summer. However, what may have been most impressive was their collective ability to bridge language barriers in order to creatively and effectively present their information. Minna brought spices into the classroom, allowing students to experiment with alternatives to traditional food additives like salt and sugar. To teach proper hand washing, Julien facilitated a classroom experiment where several students washed their hands in one of two conditions: either bar soap and water, or water alone. Students then used a spray known as Glo Germ to observe the bacteria still present on their hands. During English instruction, Eli drew her vocabulary lessons from students' areas of interest and created instructional games to maintain student engagement. Students are generally at their most attentive when instruction is engaging and interactive, so it was heartening to see the effort and planning that these volunteer put into their lessons, with the goal of engaging students and not merely lecturing them.
The one room school at Fazenda Jofre Velho, a large ranch on the edge of the remote Cuiabá River outpost of Porto Jofre, is the only school for nearly 100 miles, and caters to the children of local fishermen, guides, and ranch hands. This past summer, though, a change in management of the Ranch lead to a three month shortage in funding for the end of the school term, and left the future of the school uncertain. Juara stepped in to fund essentials during the gap, volunteered time teaching, and worked with ranch management to assure the value in keeping the school open. Through the many specialties of our board and volunteers, Juara can offer expertise in language, health, and school psychology that would be otherwise out of reach for a single teacher at a rural school.
In particular, University of Michigan education student Eli Leiva designed curriculum and taught beginning English lessons to both young students and adults at the Jofre Velho school and ranch. Juara board members are continuing instruction after Eli's departure. In August, the students were already putting their English skills to good use when National Geographic photographer Steve Winter stayed at the ranch. Winter, whose photos help promote big cat conservation, was guided and facilitated by several of our adult English students.
One of the most important aspects of conservation in the Pantanal is ensuring a robust system of local ownership and involvement in the tourism industry. Tourism is better for tourists and better for long term protection of the region when presented by people with a deep personal connection to and knowledge of the land. When more and more tourists come from abroad, though, this is only possible when locals have the required language skills.
Juara Foundation president Ethan Shirley spent nearly all of 2016 in the Pantanal, supported by a Fulbright research grant to study fishing law compliance. From Ethan, "The frequency of noncompliance with fishing rules varies with degree of trust in biologists who wrote the rules. That means that in order to effectively protect the Pantanal, there needs to be more interaction between scientists and locals." To bridge this gap, Juara often brings biologists and conservation science lessons into schools throughout the region, and on several occasions has organized school field trips out to our field site, the Pantanal Center for Education and Research, where students can see the Pantanal and the people who study it up close.
Solar Kombi began two years ago, powered by a quickly burned-out 1/2hp starter motor. Summer 2016, with larger batteries, redesigned motor mount, and a whole slew of new high-tech gauges (two voltmeters, a cheap cellphone and a meat thermometer) on the dashboard, Belezinha is crushing solar-powered speed records for the Poconé area, topping out at nearly 25mph! We've already put her into use driving kids to and from school and music lessons.
Colégio Nazaré is an orphanage, foster care center, and shelter for abused and troubled youth; providing a home for over forty children. The infrastructure is greatly in need of renovation, specifically to repair concrete for buildings and sidewalks, replace broken windows, add locks to doors, reinforce roofs, and improve plumbing and lighting. We have joined with the Rotary Club of Ann Arbor and Rotary Club of Poconé, Brazil to renovate the center.
Updates are currently in progress, with new windows, doors, and locks already in place, and further safety improvements on the way. New paint has brightened things up, and will help the buildings to age better. And most exciting for the kids (as well as an important safety improvement), work will begin soon on a new soccer court!
As a fun, experimental side project, we've converted our 1994 Volkswagen Kombi, Belezinha van to run on zero emissions, infinite miles per gallon solar power. The project doesn't use any of the Foundation's funds, only the rusted old parts lying around our friend Zeantonio's shop, a lot of electrical tape, and our personal resources and creativity.
Summer 2014 saw the installation of four 100W panels in the roof, removal of the gas engine, and mechanical and electrical adjustments to run the car directly off the starter motor. We only made it a couple hundred meters before burning out the starter motor, but it was success enough to come back in 2015 with an up to 20hp electric motor to do it for real!
Summer 2014 brought 15 University of Michigan students to Poconé under the direction of Lecturer Melinda Matice for one month to teach English at Nazaré, at schools in Pocon@eacute and Cangas (a small nearby town) , as well as in town for adults. Knowledge of English is very valuable and can significantly increase one's job prospects, but there are very few well qualified local teachers. The program creates an immersive language exchange for both the Brazilian and American students.
Last year's Emergency Healthcare project continued this summer, expanding our reach. A course instructor traveled down the Cuiabá and Paraguai Rivers in the Pantanal region of Brazil as part of the Transtec Pantanal Healthcare Project. Members from riverside communities participated in a CPR course held at a field station. Many individuals also took the opportunity to ask health-related questions relating to important topics such as diet, blood pressure, and wound care.
The Child/Adult CPR and First Aid course provides individuals without access to traditional emergency response resources the skills to identify and treat life-threatening illnesses such as heart attack, stroke, and cardiac arrest. Many people live and work in remote areas with unreliable or lengthy hospital transportation. Taking this into consideration, our course emphasizes early identification of illnesses and life-saving techniques such as CPR and rescue breathing that greatly increase the survival rates of victims and allow time for the arrival of advanced medical services.
The rural health care program started in the summer of 2012 with a couple impromptu CPR lessons taught to the children and staff of the Nazaré orphange. At that point we were using pillows for compression dummies, but 2013 expanded the project in both geography and scope. The CPR lessons grew into a three-day course covering patient assessment, basic life support skills, and rudimentary injury treatments like bandaging and splinting. Children and adults in two local schools participated in the course, practicing on CPR dummies and using common items like magazines for splinting. The kids actually splinted a course instructor to the point where he couldn't move anymore; they eventually let him go.
Course instructors will be in Brazil in the future, and are also expanding the reach of the programs to Nepal and other areas of the developing world. In Nepal, instructors are working with the National Ambulance Service to teach not only the public in rural areas, but also EMTs throughout the country.
Since 2013, Pantanal Music Exchange has collaborated with the Instituto Ciranda, a youth orchestra in Cuiabá, Mato Grosso. PME brings talented American musicians and educators to act as mentors at Ciranda, and Ciranda provides teachers and other musical opportunities to the children at Nazaré when PME volunteers are not present. During summer 2015 Juara musicians gave master classes with the State Youth Orchestra of Mato Grosso, and additionally taught and performed with Ciranda sattelite programs in Nova Mutum, Rondonopolis, Nova Brasilandia, and Campo Verde.
In summer 2014, Instituto Ciranda hosted the first ever Orchestral Music Festival in the state of Mato Grosso, at which PME musicians taught and performed. PME will be helping the festival to return with even better teachers, ensembles, and opportunities for more musicians in summer 2016.
Pantanal Music Exchange (PME) works to provide and increase access to high quality music education in Mato Grosso, Brazil. The project began at the Nazaré Orphanage in Poconé, teaching violin, viola, and cello to kids ages 8 to 16, and continues to expand with lessons, concerts, and performance opportunities in the community. PME brings in accomplished musicians and aims to provide a very high quality music education, but also recognizes the wider benefits of music. Through music, PME works to improve overall education effectiveness, build a sense of community, and provide a creative outlet.
Today, weekly music lessons continue year-round at Nazare in partnership with the Instituto Ciranda, a youth orchestra based in Cuiaba. The Juara foundation provides intensive teaching during the summer, and helps guide curriculum throughout the year. We are also looking at ways to expand throughout the schools and community in Poconé to offer music education to even more students.
Building on local tradition and strengthening community is an important part of PME. The program allows children to learn the music they like and the music they know, be it traditional, classical, or even pop. In 2014 PME ran a joint musical experience matching students in Brazil with their counterparts in Los Angeles. Aided by technology, the students were able to perform for each other, listen, and even make music together. Students could showcase their own music, experience that of others, and be proud of what they had accomplished.
The Pantanal Center for Education and Research (PCER) is a field station situated in the Jaguar Ecological Reserve. PCER was built by students of the University of Michigan Student Organization Pantanal Partnership originally as a possible site for a school as well as a testing site for sustainable technology and an educational site for locals and foreign researchers. It has been the site of over 10 study abroad programs from Stanford University and the University of Michigan, and has hosted three school field trips as well as research projects focusing on the Pantanal involving students and researchers from Brazil and abroad. The technologies tested include solar panels, biodigesters, and bio-sand water filters, and these technologies after testing have also been introduced to local rural communities through various projects by the Pantanal Partnership and by other organizations.