Build Cambodia's First Nature Discovery Center

Work Continues at The Nature Discovery Center of Cambodia

The Nature Discovery Center has now be open since January 2019. Since opening our doors The Nature Discovery Center has had over 500 visitors. 411 have been from local schools in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Every day we are working on new activity stations, educational installations and games for those who come to learn about wildlife and conservation, including a brand new elephant exhibition in The Wilds Art Gallery. We have also made some significant improvements to our touchscreen activity stations, microscope station, Jungle Lab Classroom and our Learning Garden.

Our Learning Garden has been getting some upgrades. With help from two Cambodian interns with expertise in botany and forestry, Gueck and Pha, have begun labeling and identifying all the plants in our garden and farm. We've also been building new bamboo structures to make it easier for people to explore and learn in our mini Nature Walk, and have even begun construction on our large outdoor classroom/garden lab.

Inside the nature center we have nearly finished our interactive microscope station, a spot where students and visitors can learn about insects and plants up close. We have even added some materials that allow visitors to go out into our garden to collect their own samples for study. We have also made improvements to our Wildlife Studio, our video and editing office. Here we have setup a small set for interviews and live-streams. From these couches, Fauna in Focus staff can hose video interviews with visiting researchers or run live-stream events in an elegant, nature-themed setting. After a lot of hard work, Kelsey and Cooper have finished the elephant exhibit in The Wilds Nature Art Gallery, and downstairs our touchscreen activity stations have been finalized.

Want to stay up to date with all the latest at the Nature Discovery Center and Fauna in Focus? Sign up for the animal tracks newsletter here: https://www.faunainfocus.org/animal-tracks

Thanks for all your continued support, and please share with your friends. We are curently raising about $150 per month through this platform. If we can get it to $850 per month that will cover the rent of the Nature Discovery Center facility. Keep up the support!

Cheers, 

Dan and team FIF

Links:

• Learn more about the Nature Discovery Center

Hello from Fauna in Focus,

With your generous support, we have now raised more than $7,000 for the construction and upkeep of The Nature Discovery Center of Cambodia, which opened in January 2019.

Here are a few updates on the projects and events that your donations have helped support:

Exapnding our Activity Stations

We have been working hard on expanding the range of activities available at the Nature Discovery Center, to make visiting as exciting as possible! Upstairs, we have created an elephant exhibition in our Wilds Nature Art Gallery, with elephants constructed from recycled plastic bottles. There are also a few new additions downstairs. We have now installed a Voices of Conservation station, to keep our visitors informed about all the wonderful work being done by conservation organisations around Cambodia. Our Microscope station is up running, where visitors are able to get up close and personal with a variety of insect specimens and other microscope slides. We're also currently in the process of setting up an aquatic ecosystems exhibit in the NDC, which features an Irrawaddy dolphin (constructed from recycled plastic bottles, of course) diving from the ceiling! This exhibit will feature water tanks displaying some of the common flora and fauna found in Cambodia's aquatic habitats. 

 And the work hasn't stopped at the interior of the NDC - we've also been working on sprucing up our garden and Nature Walk, which is beginning to look much more like a lush, tropical paradise thanks to the green fingers of our gardener. There are all kinds of interesting creatures to be found in the garden, as well as a whole host of beautiful plants.

Delivering Wildlife Education

Our Wildlife Classroom has been getting plenty of use, as we've been delivering education sessions to a group of students from the American Corner Wildife Club. We have developed a unique programme of lessons, which give students an insight into the diverse wildlife of Cambodia, the threats they face and how we can all help to protect the environment in this beautiful country. The lessons are designed to be as interactive and engaging as possible, and feature a wide vairety of conservation themed games. One them even includes our very own Fauna in Focus board game!

The students from the American Corner Wildlife Club have been enjoying these lessons on a regular basis and are continuing to benefit from this wildlife education. We are very proud of the education programme we have created and believe it has the power to really get people excited about conserving and protecting wildlife in Cambodia.

We look forward to continuing to expand and improve upon wildlife education in Cambodia, and we could not do it without you. Your support so far is incredibly beneficial for our work, so thank you very much! Special thanks go to our regular contributors Marianne, George, Linda and Scott - your continued support is very much appreciated.

Our crowdfunding campaign is still live, and we are only $2,952 away from our $10,000 goal. We hope you will consider continuing to support our work, to help us protect the amazingly diverse range of wildlife in Cambodia. Thank you!

See ya soon, baboon! In a while, crocodile!

Dan & the Fauna in Focus Team