Hanover students participate in plant-naming project

Western Bureau:

Twenty-six students, five years old and under, from the Passion Basic School and Daycare in Johnson Town, Hanover, were given a first-hand experience in plant identification and naming during a recent visit to the nearby Grand Palladium Jamaica and Lady Hamilton Resort and Spa.

According to Mitzie Smart, the social responsibility manager at the popular property, the invitation to the students fulfilled a double purpose, namely the observance of Global Tourism Resilience Day and the hotel’s staging of its annual ‘Four Causes Four Quarters’ programme, which is staged quarterly.

“This quarter our project is about the environment, and with February 10th being observed as Global Tourism Resilience Day, both events have something in common, which is sustainability, so we invited the children to come in and help us with a tree labelling activity, the hotel’s environmental project.

“We have identified 12 common Jamaican fruit trees on the compound, and the children have been asked to help in identifying and labelling them, with labels containing both their local and botanical names,” she stated.

According to Smart, the enthusiasm among the children was quite high as they gave the local names of the fruit trees they know, while learning their botanical names.

“This is both educational for the kids, as well as their participation is an expression of sustainability and resilience,” said Smart. “One never knows as these kids could be the next set of workers in our hotels, the next general manager for any hotel in the island, so exposing them not just to the environmental activity, but also to the [tourism] sector is very important.”

According to Smart, the registered guests at the hotel will also benefit educationally from the tree-labelling exercise, as while they move around the property they will be exposed to the local and botanical names of the local fruit trees, some of which they might not be familiar with.

Nazaree Dallas-Atkinson, the principal at Passion Basic School and Daycare, who was one of the teachers who accompanied the students, was quite appreciative of the exposure the children got.

“We have been teaching the children over the years how to take care of the environment, and, as such, they have developed a sense of responsibility over time, in how to care for nature” she said. “The exercise at the hotel provided an educational and hands-on experience for them.

“The experience has connected for them the classroom lessons with the real world, so taking them out of the classroom and having them doing things directly will have more impact on them.”

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