OUR MISSION Amigos Alados is an international environmental education and friendship project offering instruction on endemic and migratory bird life for elementary students in the Western USA and Mexico. We have three primary objectives: 1) to sensitize the children to the special needs of birds for protection and habitat conservation, 2) to form friendships between students from both countries as they share their interest and information about the birds that migrate between the two countries, and 3) to facilitate students sharing what they have learned with their larger communities, thus helping them to become advocates for birds and overall environmental protection. OUR VISION The Amigos Alados vision is to involve an increasing number of schools in the western United States and Mexico so that we create a widespread conviction that migratory songbirds and their ecosystems can be saved by education and collaborative effort. We hope to inspire our children to seek higher education in the environmental sciences and to continue working to sensitize their larger communities to today’s pressing environmental issues of habitat loss, toxic contamination, global warming, and rapid extinction of species so that together we can find solutions to these problems. PROJECT BACKGROUND Amigos Alados or Winged Friends is an exciting educational project between elementary school students in California, USA, and Jalisco, Mexico. Beginning in the fall of 2007, students at Ross School in Marin County, California, and Primaria Cuauhtemoc in Los Espinos, Jalisco, began studying birds that migrate between the San Francisco Bay Area and the Sierra de Tapalpa and sharing their research and observations with each other. Many people in the San Francisco Bay Area are interested in the life of birds and the conservation of their habitat, but in rural Mexico these ideas are just beginning to take hold. Children often practice their aiming skills by killing birds with slingshots, and pajareros catch birds to sell them to be eaten or put into cages for purchase. Many birds fly a long way to spend the winter months in a warmer climate, only to come to a sad end at their destination in Central or South America. On the other hand, widespread habitat destruction, pesticide use, house cats, window collisions, and other factors play a huge part in endangering songbirds in the United States. Therefore, it is essential that conservation work be done across borders - which is our central motivation for creating the connection between students in both countries. Besides helping to sensitize kids to the plight of migratory birds and their habitat, Amigos Alados offers an opportunity for a friendship and penpal program between the schools. This project is an important way to bring children on both sides of the border together and to enrich their appreciation of the longstanding, close relationship between the environments and cultures of Mexico and California. In the coming years as regular funding is established, we hope to make Amigos Alados a much broader program, including many more schools in the western United States and Mexico. WHO WE ARE Martina G. Cervantes, Co-founder Martina earned a Master’s Degree equivalent in Clinical Social Work from the Fachhochschule für Sozialwesen in Stuttgart, Germany, and a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, California. She worked as the director of a therapeutic treatment home for children and co-founder for an alternative conference center in Germany. As a psychotherapist, she has worked with children and adults in both Germany and the US. Married to a Mexican citizen, she is fluent in the Spanish language. Martina has a deep interest in environmental protection and restoration work and a great love for birds. She lives in Tapalpa, Mexico, and over the past several years she has received strong support from professors and former students of CUCSUR, a branch of the University of Guadalajara, for Amigos Alados activities in the Sierra de Tapalpa. Alison Quoyeser, Co-founder Alison earned her Bachelor’s Degree in psychology and fine arts from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, her Master of Architecture Degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and her multi-subject elementary teaching credential from the University of California, Berkeley. She has taught at Ross Elementary School in Ross, California, since 1989 and worked with her students to create a habitat garden to attract birds and beneficial insects. Designing hands-on curriculum, project-based learning opportunities, and musical/theatrical performances to teach about the environment, Alison focused on the rainforest ecosystem for six years as a second grade teacher and then local watershed ecology for the last 15 years as a fourth grade teacher. She has enjoyed the support of STRAW (Students and Teachers Restoring a Watershed) and ornithologists from PRBO (Point Reyes Bird Observatory), as well as many other environmental education organizations. She has studied the Spanish language for many years as a child and as an adult. Laura Honda, Advisor Laura earned her bachelor's degree in Environmental Studies and her multi-subject elementary teaching credential from Sonoma State University. She has taught third and fourth grade at Manor School in Fairfax, California, since 1995. Laura won the California State Science Teacher award in 2001, a National Earth Apple award from the Alliance to Save Energy for energy conservation education, a Humane Teacher award from the Marin Community Foundation, and a Terwilliger Environmental Award. Laura teaches a wealth of hands-on environmental science lessons including the construction of solar heated house models, planting and maintenance of a school bee garden, and raising steelhead trout in the classroom. On top of her classroom responsibilities, Laura runs Manor School’s Green Club, which plans and performs numerous environmental conservation projects. Like Alison, Laura has enjoyed the support of STRAW and PRBO, as well as a myriad of Bay Area environmental education experts, including Dr. Gordon Frankie, renowned bee specialist from UC Berkeley.
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...the conservation of our natural world cannot be brought about by individuals or countries acting in isolation.  It can only be achieved through our understanding of each other; our cultural, social, and economic differences, across countries and continents as far flung and widespread as the osprey itself.

                                                                                            Gill Lewis, author of Wild Wings

Border illustration: California Oak Woodland Community © Suzanne Duranceau

This and other natural history posters available at http://www.goodnaturepublishing.com/