International School of Amsterdam

Teacher at the International School of Amsterdam - Darren Frampton

My name’s Darren, and I’ve been a biology teacher at the International School of Amsterdam for over six years. 

In my time as an international biology teacher, I’ve arranged an awful lot of trips by myself to Asia, to corners of Eastern Europe, and to Africa. I’d recommend African Conservation Experience (ACE) for the ease with which the trip works out from a teacher’s perspective. When you’re trying to arrange these trips, you’ve often got to put a great deal of trust into people you don’t know, or trust in your ability to work things out when you arrive. With ACE, it’s nice to know that the entire programme has been planned out in advance, and that we (the teachers) have been able to be a part of that discussion!

The experience has been really straightforward to organise. We were met at the airport by a representative from ACE and taken to a hotel nearby. The next day, we were shown around Johannesburg, starting at the central business district and gradually moving through different areas of Johannesburg to get a feel for South Africa, the history and the cultural environment. After the cultural visit, we headed towards the Greater Kruger area. When you start to think about the costs involved in doing this by yourself, as I often have, the costs of accommodation, the time cost of trying to make the arrangements yourself, the costs of finding a highly experienced guide that can really show you what you need, they all add up. I think that travelling with ACE represents really good value for money.

Our trip tied into the students’ broader education in many ways. I’m here from a biology perspective, but the trip also applies to our CAS programme back at school, and beyond. Some of our students have been to Africa before, but I think this experience really got them much more involved with the environmental and social aspects of what’s going on here, the reasons behind the stories that they read in the news. 

Since the International School of Amsterdam has been working with ACE, we’ve found them really helpful at integrating the students’ own interests into our visits. On this trip, we’ve had one student working on an extended essay into the use of technology and camera traps in assessing biodiversity. The management team has been fantastic at helping us to get that data, and giving extra insights into working with this sort of equipment which, frankly, our students in Amsterdam wouldn’t have the chance to experiment with on their own. 

We’ve also had a few students here working on their global politics studies, and they’ve been interviewing the management staff and conservation teams to gather some qualitative data for their assignments. 

We’ve certainly, previously and on this trip, also been incorporating some of the environmental sampling techniques that we learn here to collect some data in Africa. I’m hoping that the students are going to go back to Amsterdam and maybe on their holidays later in the summer, try and use those techniques elsewhere. Hopefully we’ll get some really nice data comparison sets for their individual biology investigations. 

As a group we’ve developed biological ideas, identifying the animals, some of the plants, even some of the birds and invertebrates around, and doing some biodiversity counts. Personally, I’m a birder, and I found it fantastic to be able to sit and watch and really rack up those biodiversity counts, finding the little things that make these trips so special. What’s been great is incorporating our work into the students’ own individual projects and research. It’s been fantastic.

The experts guiding us have been phenomenal. They’ve explained an awful lot about the wildlife. Every wildlife encounter that we’ve had, they’ve explained how we found the animals, what the animals’ behaviour is showing, what they’re expecting the animals to do next. 

One of my most memorable moments of the trip is from one of the wildlife drives in the evening. I always find night drives to be the most exciting part of any trip like this. We were out in the dark, and two bull elephants approached our vehicle, literally within metres. The students were quiet and followed the instructions of the guides perfectly. They enjoyed every second of it, and couldn’t wait to tell their friends about it when we got back to base camp. 

In addition to the wildlife experience, the social benefits to the students have been huge.

These students have been brought together by a shared interest, and have had to cope in really quite remote circumstances. They’ve been living together in the rooms, having to put up with each other’s little habits, and they’ve been working on looking after themselves, cleaning up after themselves. The big thing has been walking in the bush and having to follow instructions; working together, following instructions and helping each other out really gives them a sense of purpose. 

As well as the wildlife element, we interspersed the trip with some more cultural and service elements. Nothing out here really makes sense without taking into account South Africa’s social state and history, and the visit to Johannesburg really put that into perspective. We were taken to Soweto, and it was great for the students to see what was going on there. We also went to the Apartheid Museum, which I found to be a very eye-opening experience, and certainly the students did too. They learned a great deal about how social pressures and political conditions lead to such a horrible state of affairs. 

Some students on the trip have been on safaris before, but maybe not had this less touristy experience before. The central business district of Johannesburg took us by surprise. It was very modern, very big, lots of money everywhere, very much against some of our students’ preconceptions. 

As well as our Johannesburg trip, we went and visited a local school, actually did something useful there, helped them with a project that they had been wanting to do for a little while but hadn't had the time and resources available to dedicate to it. We also spent a day at an animal rehabilitation centre which provides care for sick and injured wildlife. 

South Africa is a place where you have to face your own biases and prejudices, and where you’re confronted with things that will take you by surprise, no matter who you are or where you’ve come from. It certainly has brought us together to face proper global issues, from a conservation perspective, looking at the plight of rhinos at the moment, to looking at international governments, politics, trade agreements, and considering all sorts of actions across the world that are having impacts here.