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Brazil is home to at least 1,036 known amphibian species — more than any other country. At least 15 species have gone extinct in recent decades; our goal this Save The Frogs Day is to educate the local community about amphibians so that we can prevent further extinctions.
Under the banner of SAVE THE FROGS! Brazil, SAVE THE FROGS! Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger along with Professor Felipe Toledo and 13 undergraduate and graduate students from the Amphibians Natural History Lab at the State University of Campinas in São Paulo will spend April 26th through 29th educating schoolchildren, university students, and community members about the importance of amphibians and ways to protect them.
The Save The Frogs Day team in Campinas, Sao Paulo in the midst of educating 430+ primary school students on April 26th, 2017.
April 26th:
The SAVE THE FROGS! Brazil team visited the E.E. Fiasco Sergio Pereira Porto school in Campinas (Sao Paulo state) and gave ten separate presentations educating all 434 of the school’s students, who were aged 5 to 10. Students interacted with live frogs and wore frog masks that they colored. Students also played with origami frogs created by the SAVE THE FROGS! Brazil team.
At night, the SAVE THE FROGS! Brazil team will visit Warrior Campinas, a popular bar with an outdoor area where we will host an informational table. We will sell STF! Brazil stickers and funds to raise money for amphibian biology research.
April 27th:
Our team visited Colegio Rio Branco, a private school where we spoke to 150 students about amphibians. Afterwards we hosted an informational table on the university campus in one of the busier areas of campus.
Read the article the Colegio Rio Branco wrote about the event. Here are some quotes from the article:
De acordo com Kriger, o Brasil possui a maior biodiversidade de anfíbios, com mais de mil animais já catalogados, e provavelmente muitos ainda a serem descobertos e identificados. “Sempre tive vontade de vir ao Brasil para falar sobre esse assunto, vide a importância do país para as espécies desse grupo. Há muitas ameaças aos anfíbios devido a destruição das florestas tropicais, doenças como a quitridiomicose, pesticidas, crescimento populacional, para citar somente alguns fatores, e precisamos divulgar essas informações às pessoas”, assegura o ecologista.
Carolina Lambertini, bióloga e aluna de doutorado do departamento de Biologia da Unicamp, participou das atividades de monitoramento e orientação das turmas de 3º ano, esclarecendo as dúvidas dos alunos do colégio e contando curiosidades sobre os animais. “Nossa intenção é plantar a sementinha nas crianças de como podemos reverter esse quadro e proteger os anfíbios. Eles são muito importantes, pois ajudam com o controle biológico de mosquitos que transmitem doenças, são indicadores de poluição ambiental, os venenos de algumas espécies são usado na pesquisa e fabricação de medicamentos, entre outros benefícios”, relatou Carolina.
“Quando temos crianças que recebem esse tipo de informação e educação desde cedo, elas crescem cientes da importância de preservar o meio ambiente, e esperamos que, futuramente, elas sigam fazendo coisas benéficas para ajudar a salvar o planeta, disseminando a mensagem que passamos aqui. Quem sabe, até escolham carreiras relacionadas à proteção do meio ambiente”, disse Kriger, esperançoso.
April 28th:
In the morning, undergraduate and graduate students from the lab will give presentations about their research. At lunch we will host another informational table on campus. At 2pm, Dr. Kriger will give a presentation about SAVE THE FROGS!’ history in Brazil and our efforts elsewhere in the world.
In the evening we will visit Pico das Cabras, a mountaintop with an endemic endangered frog (Hylodes sazimai) that only occurs in the streams of that mountain. At the observatory atop the mountain, we will play a slideshow and educate visitors about the importance of the site to amphibians and enjoy the stargazing. We will lead a small group of visitors to one of the few places where this stream-dwelling frog can be found, and discuss why we should protect that area and their habitat.
April 29th:
The 9th Annual Save The Frogs Day! We will travel to the largest city in the western hemisphere (Sao Paulo) and join forces with the staff of the Sao Paulo Zoo. We will host an amphibian education table all day and the staff has set up a variety of exhibits to educate visitors about amphibians. Dr. Kriger will take two breaks during the day to hold a worldwide online video conference and a Facebook Live session.