For Oana Chèvre ’26, this past summer was like no other. With the support of the Bailey College of Environment summer fellowship program, Chèvre set off lugging two huge suitcases on a journey to Madagascar, where she helped enrich the science curriculum of local fifth graders with innovative materials conceptualized in a University classroom.

These science materials, all centered around the diverse ecological systems of Madagascar, were co-developed by students in Associate Professor of the Practice in Biology Joyce Powzyk’s signature course, “Science Materials For a Malagasy Classroom” (BIOL161). Chèvre took the class in Spring 2023 as a first-year student.

“I conceived of this project some time ago, but finally got it written up and in class form and taught it for three different spring semesters,” Powzyk said. “[The class] met in the [IDEAS Lab] makerspace, and the whole reason for the class was to make science materials in a creative, aesthetic, captivating way for fifth graders in Madagascar as a way to enrich their curriculum. We weren’t trying to take over the curriculum, or say we know more than you do. There was nothing like that.”

As Powzyk explained, the class sprung out of her own graduate work researching lemurs in Madagascar.

“This had germinated in my head a long time ago in my graduate career,” Powzyk said. “I did field work in Madagascar and lived there for several years working with lemurs. That’s when I got to know my guides and their family and their kids, and I noticed that their kids never had enough school supplies. Very graciously, my guide said, ‘Hey, Joyce, would you be interested in buying some school supplies?’ And of course, I was like, ‘Oh, this is easy.’ The school supplies morphed into science materials much later. I’d always wanted to bring some science materials, because I think kids and animals…they take to each other quite readily.”

In explaining the story behind the course, Powzyk highlighted the importance of making science accessible to all.

“I’m a biology professor, and read these pithy papers,” Powzyk said. “But also, getting that information out is so important—and [so is] getting it out in different ways. I wrote and illustrated children’s books before I went to grad school, so I already was writing about science for kids. When I was a kid, I loved that stuff, and I wanted to make more and catch kids that don’t think they’re interested by having good design and good aesthetics and fun things. That sense of using aesthetics with very competent science, easy to understand, is the way we should all be, because science is knocking on our door.”

Like Powzyk, Chèvre has a multi-faceted connection to the project. Her mother is from Madagascar, which gave her a personal link to the location.

“I think part of why I was interested in the class is because my mom is from Madagascar, so I was kind of surprised to see a class that mentioned Madagascar,” Chèvre said. “And I speak French because I’m from France. They have French and Malagasy [in Madagascar] because they used to be a French colony. And I’m also really interested in education. I’m not an education major, but I used to do WesReads and WesMath so I have a little bit of experience going into classrooms and teaching and interacting with kids.”

Chèvre left for Madagascar on Tuesday, May 28 for a month-long trip, spending about two weeks on project-related activities in Toamasina. Working with a local NGO, the Madagascar Fauna and Flora Group, she brought over a wide array of comic books, posters, and games. According to Chèvre, she could barely carry it all.

“[The Fauna and Flora Group is] in association with a lot of schools,” Chèvre said. “They have a network [in Madagascar]. I had to pay a lot, a lot [for overweight luggage]. I had like, two huge suitcases, and they were really, really heavy. And maybe I brought three little pieces of clothes, but it was all a candy and a lot of overweight.” 

In the schools, Chèvre presented the materials with the help of a translator. While local partners helped with the language barrier, she faced other funding challenges along the way. 

“It would take a pretty long trip [to the schools] usually, because the roads are really bad,” Chèvre said. “Sometimes [the school would] be essentially a few miles away, but it would take so long to get there because the roads are terrible.”

Some schools located in suburban Madagascar are also underfunded and under-resourced, resulting in large classes with students from mixed grades. 

“We presented all the materials to students,” Chèvre said. “We divided it equally, so that whatever [the] school needed would be provided. Some schools are bigger. [There would] be a class of 60 kids, and they’re like, seven to fourteen. It’s not the same grade at all. So for those classes in those schools, we try to give a little more.”

Despite initially worrying about large class sizes, Chèvre found the teaching experience to be incredibly fulfilling.

“I was a little stressed before going in [to] explain something to a large group of little kids,” Chèvre said. “But those little kids were so curious. They were so excited and they paid so much attention to everything I was saying. They were very, very careful listeners. Some of these kids have to walk maybe three hours to school, and in this region, it’s very rainy and they don’t have rain boots, so it just puts things into a whole different perspective. I was very impressed.”

Based on her own experience working with Malagasy schools, Powzyk concurred.

“[The Malagasy people] love school so much that they just want to be well equipped,” Powzyk said. “They take education really seriously.”

Looking back, Chèvre expressed how much she had learned from the local community.

“The Fauna and Flora Group were trying to be self-sufficient when it came to food and things, and so they had gardens in their school courtyards where the children and the professors could grow their own food,” Chèvre said. “I toured a bunch of [the gardens], and they just felt so impressive to me, because for us, we go to school and then we go to Usdan. We don’t really know where [the food] comes from. It’s all basically handed on a platter to us. So it was nice to see these students being a part of what they grow and what they eat, and it’s really like an effort that’s being put by them. [Compared to] the farm we have here, there are fewer resources there, and the weather is so hard to work with and very unpredictable sometimes.”

According to Powzyk, the project holds great salience against Madagascar’s drastically changing climate. 

“Madagascar, as an island, is getting more impacted by climate change,” Powzyk said. “Things are changing faster. The droughts are worse. They’re not every 10 years; they’re every other year. The cyclones are fewer but more destructive. We just want the kids to have a little extra science to spark curiosity, to get questions going. Their island is going to be changing faster than most.” 

Chèvre similarly emphasized that an important part of their project was to let the local children know how precious their own environment is. 

“We’d have discussions with the kids—and with professors, too—about the biodiversity in Madagascar, and how it was impacted by climate change,” Chèvre said. “We emphasized when we went to the classes that it’s important to talk about the endemic species, or something that’s very unique to Madagascar, so that they feel like their country is very special and that they’ll strive to protect it.”

Powzyk, too, pointed to the distinct biodiversity of Madagascar as something she wanted to bring the children’s attention to.

“There’s a whole other set of fauna—huge, big, fuzzy things that they probably don’t know about, but that’s their heritage,” Powzyk said. “I mean, Madagascar is more spectacular than the Galapagos. If Darwin had gone to Madagascar, we would have lemurs everywhere. It just has such an unusual biological evolutionary scenario.”

Chèvre’s trip to Madagascar left a significant impact on her.

“I would say for me, it was definitely pretty life-changing,” Chèvre said. “I feel like I travel a lot in a very limited context, but I’d never really been to Africa by myself, and I was definitely a little apprehensive at first. And for me, it immediately clicked. I definitely loved it, and it reinforced my desire to teach or be involved in education projects throughout my life.”

Chèvre also reflected fondly on her experience in “Science Materials For a Malagasy Classroom” class.

“The class was really special, because even though it was science-based, we were essentially going off of scientific research,” Chèvre said. “Basically, a lot of students in the class have had artistic kinds of penchants, and a lot of students took the class because they were interested in education as well. It was so nice to have someone really artistic, someone who has a really good interest in science, and someone who’s very creative. There was really a way for every student in the class to be as involved as they wanted to be. It’s informative, but it’s also fun.”

According to Chèvre, the students worked in a collaborative manner, providing each other with suggestions and constructive feedback while remaining conscious of their intended audience. The class also visited a fifth grade classroom in Middletown to test how the materials would be received by children.

“We try to keep in mind what can be helpful and what could be grasped because it’s also just different levels of understanding depending on their age and their grade, and how they were brought up,” said Chèvre. “Critique was [also] really helpful, because we [could choose and] send over [to Madagascar] whatever was really appreciated in the class.”

Looking forward, Chèvre hopes that the project could strengthen support for Malagasy schools in geographically disadvantaged areas.

“I visited a school outside of the program in the city where my little cousin went, and the infrastructure and resources [compared to] a school 20 minutes outside…have no similarities at all,” Chèvre said. “So I think it’s good if the project were to be renewed, it’s good to change the area and definitely try and stay in more of the countryside realm than the city.”

Powzyk, too, had some ideas for the expansion of their project.

“These schools in the countryside do not get the same money and materials, definitely not,” Powzyk said. “And they’re interacting more with the landscape, more than [the schools in] the city—even hitting an area, a little bit of a hotspot, where they are dealing with drought. And maybe some of the posters can be on how to farm plants that need very little water. It’s good to help alleviate some of the stressors that they’re under. Because, for example, a totally different area than where Oana was—in the southwest where the drought is—kids are really hungry.”

Nancy Li can be reached at nli02@wesleyan.edu.

Sida Chu can be reached at schu@wesleyan.edu.