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Cheetah Classes for the Students in Tehran

Feb 2006- Many students in schools learn about the cheetah in educational workshops by the Iranian Cheetah Society (ICS) in Tehran. During the past 2 years, a total of more than 15 schools have been hosts to the ICS educational team in order to hold cheetah workshops in which the participants learn about the cheetah's distinctive properties, biology, present status and conservation needs in Iran.  

With a backbone of a few years wildlife education in Tehran schools, the Cheetah Educational Program has been launched in February 2004 by the Iranian Cheetah Society (ICS) aiming to increase awareness about the cheetah and its associated biota among the schools' students. The first phase was to prepare a cheetah educational package, including various tools suitable to teach the students about the various aspects of the cheetah ecology through a collaborative 2 hours workshop. Regularly composed of less than 30 people, participants are divided into 5 groups as the symbols of 5 main cheetah habitats in Iran with 1 facilitator from ICS for each cheetah group. After describing ecological concepts such as food chains and webs, camouflage, ecosystem, etc. they are ready to start various cheetah games. First, they have to identify the cheetah among several cards belonging to other large cats and describe their characteristics. Then, it is time to find their habitat and relevant prey species. Ultimately, the students are asked to think about how to conserve this animal and ensure its survival. Sara Baghery, the executive director of the ICS Cheetah Educational Program says "The final conservation solution is always interesting and shows how they have been affected by the cheetah lessons and games. It is really difficult to draw the attention of a group of juveniles to listen to the cheetah concepts, however when they find that the cheetah class is quite different with their other routine classes and can have 2 hours games and matches with our facilitators, they try their best to participate."  After the workshop, the participants are presented various cheetah gifts, including poster, movies, brochures, etc and are asked to join the Cheetah Youth Network composed of the young cheetah experts! 2 weeks pre and after each workshop, a short evaluation is done to assess the efficacy of the cheetah workshop among the students. Surprisingly, the participated students usually request to bring a live or stuffed cheetah to the workshops which really can enhance the efficacy!!! Since the coming summer, this educational program is developed to the local communities around the cheetah habitats and the Iranian Cheetah Society (ICS) is pleased to benefit any educational experience done on large carnivores in other countries and wishes to have a copy of reports, books, and other materials.