"When Social Media meets Art and Culture" will be a presentation based on the U Chan Muul Yaax K'aax Maya Museum from the genesis to its developing stages, reaching out to the youth and elders. It will focus on how social media meets art and culture can transmit inspiration, hope, oral tradition and become a role model.

Since prehispanic times, Belize's many rivers have been traffic arteries that structure the territory. Through the use of traditional indigenous boats, rivers connect coastal sites to those inland. I would like to introduce you to these two means of transport, emblematic of river navigation, the dory and the pitpan.

My study argues that an exploration of Indigenous mathematics, ways of knowing, doing, and being through culture-based practices of Maya Elders, can enact and create a more enlivening and empowering mathematics curriculum. I use the term weaving as a metaphor to conceptualize mathematics as a fabric of interlaced concepts.

This piece will seek to discuss how the adaptation of the Cohune Industry in Belize is a positive step towards sustainability and conservation.

Humans face a series of challenges tied to anthropogenic climate change ranging from rising temperature, rising sea levels, drought, flooding, loss of soil, increased impact and degradation of cultivated lands, food insecurity, increasing rural to urban migration, with rural and urban unemployment. The challenges and their solutions for much of Belize are overlapping. Increasing rural employment, repairing degraded land, increasing soil fertility, creating models of land use that replicate ecosystem functions of primary habitat, namely soil and soil moisture retention, creation of habitat and carbon drawdown, is possible through education and outreach.

The Crocodile Research Coalition is a nonprofit organization; our mission is to promote conservation of crocodiles and their habitats throughout Central America through community involvement, research, and education. Education is key to opening many doors and as an NGO that conserves these species in fishing communities specially, we connect with the people through outreach, culture, eco-clubs, and a lot of community involvement.

The Locally Project, is a community-funded project in collaboration between artists, small businesses, local and international stakeholders on a joint mission to safeguard Belize’s culture.

Building on the much-discussed impact of animation to influence ideologies, attitudes and behaviors globally, we sought to utilize a locally popular folklore story to deliver messages in support of conservation and sustainable development. After a successful debut short film including winning the Belize International Film Festival and screening at two others, the team is now working on a seven-episode series with seed funding from Netflix/Ambulante.

Communication is the means of sharing information and spreading knowledge. Photography is the means of communicating with people visually. People understand messages differently from each other. A good image on the other hand will always portray the same message to everyone.

I will present a brief description of our Organization GAMAE International Inc. and speak a little about what we are about and our mission, vision and goals. I will also speak a bit about the GAMAE Projects we are doing at this time.

To’one Masehualoon NGO is a cultural preservational group in northern Belize which grew out of the idea that the people of Belize who are of Yucatec Maya decent are slowly losing their self of identity and that the demise of a vibrant culture filled with ancestral splendor and knowledge is slowly reaching extinction. The purpose of the group is to restore and preserve the pride of being of Yucatec Maya ancestry. This is accomplished by preserving all areas of the culture such as language, spirituality, attire, cuisine, folklore, and dance and by also being engaged in community outreach.

In an effort to provoke discussions on Maya identity, in 2018 a group of young cultural activists revived San Antonio Day to highlight the Yucatec Maya traditions of the village. The reloaded version of San Antonio Day, Another Beautiful Day in San Antonio, encompasses a trifocal approach that incorporates sports, culture, and environmental awareness.

I will be drawing from my archaeological investigations at Tipu and Lamanai, and additionally from my husband David Pendergast's excavations at Lamanai, to connect both the Maya and colonial pasts to Belize's present. Both were centuries-old Maya communities, and both were sites of early Christian or "primitive" churches founded by the Franciscans in the early 16th century.

The ancient Maya site of Colha in northern Belize is a focal point of some early developments beginning in the Archaic period (about 3400 BCE). Recent studies have identified earlier than Maya occupants in the region that had significant cultural developments. Belize’s prehistory is quite significant in Maya (and pre-Maya) studies. Factors of defining communities, aspects of horticulture, and the transition from the Archaic into the Preclassic are reviewed in consideration of - just who were the earliest Maya?

Architecture is an expression of culture and culture process, there is a lot that we can dig into concerning this subject. In this presentation, we will define and present one such expression: the ancient Maya architecture of East-Central Belize (Stann Creek District). We'll also discuss our approach to understanding its development through reconnaissance and survey, excavation, materials science, experimentation, and tapping community knowledge.

Belizeans have a long tradition of music-making. Evidence of this heritage shows that it goes all the way back to the ancient Maya of Belize. Music is said to be the language of emotion and that all music is meant to be shared. Here, an introduction of various musical instruments used by the ancient Maya along with sound artefacts from Pacbitun will be presented. A short video demonstration of sound from the functioning artefacts and a discussion of ancient Maya music-making and soundscape at Pacbitun.