NCRT was at a campsite today to share our research findings with a group of 20 NIE student-teachers who have adopted the Musang Watch as part of their outreach project! The group is supervised by Vilma from NIE and Cicada Tree Eco Place who has helped me a lot for my civet diet research. We are very happy that this group of student-teachers is interested in increasing awareness of our last native wild carnivore to primary school children! We also have with us three friends – Huilian, Jun Hien & Ron!
Initially, a recce was planned to be conducted today, however due to miscommunication, we were unable to access the site. Not wanting to miss the chance to share our findings with the student-teachers, we made use of what we have around us – laptop and garbage bin (Ron’s creative idea). Thus, NCRT gave our talks to a group of 20 NIE student-teachers using a laptop on a garbage bin!
Civet girl sharing her research findings!
Civet POOP girl sharing her research findings!
The highlight of the evening has to go to the civet who visited a resident’s garden which got all the student-teachers excited! This is the first time they saw a civet. As we thought that we were probably not going to see any more civets, we suddenly smelt pandan (the civet anal gland secretion smells like pandan)! I jokingly said that the civet must have come to attend my talk on civet poop. It was indeed an unique experience for the student-teachers to smell the civet before seeing it.
While this recce trip did not turn out to be what we have expected, all of us had a great time learning more about the civet and seeing the civet! We also had a great catch up conversation with the residents there who have helped Weiting and I for our research projects! Vilma later told us that “They (the student-teachers) got to see a couple of musangs and to hear 2 great research studies presented from atop a garbage bin! Very unique!…”
We are looking forward to the actual event some time in November!
– As long as we have an interested audience, it does not matter where the talks were held!
