In the first years of the MFG's existence our focus in Parc Ivoloina was on improving the Zoo for the animals and visitors but also as establishing it as a valuable an environmental education resource for the local community.  Madagascar's National Environmental Action Plan specifically emphasized the critical role environmental education played in achieving the country's goals.  Construction of the Zoo's Center for Environmental Education (CEE) and expanding the staff to included trained educators enabled the MFG's CEE team to introduce school children and their teachers to environmental principles and issues.

Although a step in the right direction, the CEE team also recognized that local schools were unable to reinforce or sustain the environmental messages children received from their school trips to the CEE.  Despite encouragement from the Ministry of Education that teachers integrate environmental education into their teaching curriculum, efforts were stymied because teachers lacked the biology background, experience and expertise needed to communicate environmental issues to their pupils.  

In response, the MFG organized and collaborated with a team of 40 Tamatave school district officials and teachers to produce a 65-page manual in Malagasy and French titled  "Guide Pratique du Maitre: l'Application de l'Education Environnementale dans l'Enseignement Primaire"  (A Practical Guide for the Teacher:-the Application of Environmental Education in Primary School Instruction). The Guide provided concise information on a variety of ecological terms and processes, fact sheets focused on certain topics, maps and a selection of classroom activities.  The Guide's subject modules were  directly linked by grade, subject, topic and lesson to teaching modules in the national primary school curriculum.  A draft was piloted and evaluated in eight schools providing valuable feed-back that led to further refinements.  In May 2001 the Guide was officially validated by Madagascar's Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education.  Over the next two-years the MFG introduced the Guide to teachers and trained them in its use. A total of 420 teachers from 181 schools in the Toamasina Region attended the workshops and were given copies of the Guide. 

After the initial workshops targeting individual teachers, the MFG initiated an annual continuing environmental education workshop for the schools' Chief Education Officer (referred to as Chef ZAPs).  The 3-5 day workshops served to 1) update the Chefs on environmental issues of concern, 2) present new conservation concepts or practices that could be incorporated into their districts' lesson plans, 3) support the Chefs' teacher training/retraining work by reviewing use of the Teachers' Guide with new examples, 4) assess district needs to train new teachers and/or provide supplemental training for teachers in the use of the Teachers Guide, and 5) develop individualized plans with the Chefs regarding dissemination of the workshop concepts and materials.  The workshops were  held at Ivoloina however, the MFG education team followed up with individual Chef ZAPs when they did site visits at the villages.