Rapid Assessment for Conservation Education (RACE)

Abstract

Rapid Assessment for Conservation Education (RACE) provides guidelines and tools useful to a range of audiences for identifying immediate and long-term conservation education needs in a community or region and for recommending subsequent actions. Interviews, written and oral surveys, participatory workshops, public meetings, and other methods of qualitative and quantitative data collection are used to gather information quickly and inexpensively from people and institutions with a wide range of backgrounds, interests, and expertise. In the Bay Islands, Honduras, RACE led to the implementation of conservation education activities, such as the development of a teacher's manual, workshops for teachers, publication of an ecology guidebook, dissemination of environmental signs and brochures for tourists and residents, and establishment of environmental resource centers. Evaluation and monitoring will provide feedback for program modification and design of future initiatives based on the RACE approach.