February 18, 2000
Since its beginning, over 400 teachers from Baja California have participated in an environmental education training program offered by PROBEA (Bioregional Environmental Education Project), of the San Diego Natural History Museum. On February 26th these teachers will gather in Tijuana to celebrate their first reunion. This meeting will take place at the municipal government building, Palacio de Gobierno Municipal, in Tijuana. The first PROBEA training was held at this site in May of 1993 with 63 teachers enrolled in the program.
Doretta Winkelman, U.S. Program Coordinator of PROBEA, says, "We are very excited about this reunion. Our teachers have worked very hard, participated enthusiastically in our program, and we are getting together to celebrate our successes and to acknowledge our teachers of Mexico."
PROBEA is a bio-regional collaboration consisting of ten organizations, five from each side of the border. In addition to Ms. Winkelman, the management team of this program include Laura Durazo, Program Coordinator from Mexico, Dolores Monterrubio, Academic Coordinator, Mexico, and Judy Ramírez, Academic Coordinator, U.S. Collectively the PROBEA management team has more than 60 years delivering educational programs in the U.S. and Mexico.
The vision of PROBEA is to inspire teachers, students, and individuals to become environmentally responsible citizens of the Tijuana River watershed and/or local regions and habitats; to create awareness about their own personal environment and what they can do to make a difference; and to give practical materials and ideas for individual action.
PROBEA environmental training has three levels: At the first level teachers focus on environmental subjects using innovative teaching techniques. Themes covered are the watershed, domestic water use, reduce, reuse, recycle, compost-ing, revegetation, and an introduction to ecology. The second level is a two-day training designed for teachers of middle school. This program presents more in-depth ecology themes focused on the estuary or local habitats. The third level is for teachers who have complete Levels 1 and 2 and consists of training in water quality testing procedures followed by student water quality testing at a site near the school and training in Aquatic Ecosystems, a core curriculum unit. When complete, each teacher has spent approximately 120 hours in training.
PROBEA emerged from a dream of three women who teamed up in the non-profit Daedalus Alliance for Environmental Education between 1991 and 1993—Merle Okino O'Neill, Doretta Winkelman, and Suzanne Brown, founder and CEO of the Angelica Foundation. In January of 1997, the Alliance merged with the San Diego Natural History Museum and the environmental education program became part of the Museum. In the last six and a half years over 400 teachers have participated in courses taught in Ensenada, Tijuana, Mexicali and Tecate. Future plans include expansion to Rosarito and Baja California Sur.
PROBEA has been funded in the past by U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the EPA, North American Fund for Environmental Cooperation and, most recently, Fundacion La Puerta (The Rancho La Puerta Foundation). It has offices in Tijuana and at the San Diego Natural History Museum in San Diego.
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