Four students of the Arava Institute, together with their Environmental Leadership Seminar coordinator Rina Kedem, and alumni Amjad Hijazen and Areen Al-Majali, recently ran an environmental exchange workshop for youths from Israel and Jordan, as part of their personal Environmental Leadership course project.
The workshop titled “Conservation & Development of Desert and Marine Environments” included a group of 30 students, parents and teachers from the Maale Shaharut high school in Israel and a few representatives from the Dead-Sea & Arava Science Center, as well as a group of 30 young women who are studying in high schools in the Jordanian part of the Arava Valley. The activities included social dynamics games with an emphasis on non-verbal communication to overcome the existing language barrier, and four field stations at which the participants studied different environmental aspects of the area in small mixed groups: The local desert environment, bird migration in the area, hydrology of the local salt flat, geography and geology of the Arava Valley, and the marine habitat of the Red Sea.
The workshop was held in Jordan, and in view of the participants positive responses, an additional gathering is planned to take place in Israel in the coming months. This project constitutes an important milestone in our continuous effort for cross-border cooperation focusing on environmental topics.
Submitted by Rina Kedem
