Seeds of Change 2018

Hello fellow parents in the United States, We come to you with a message from the children of Costa Rica. Today we were served eggs, rice, and beans for breakfast and after that we loaded up the vans to travel to our next destination. On the way we stopped at the Mariposario to buy some lovely bracelets made by the local women of Finca La Anita. Then we stopped in Liberia at the local grocery store to buy a ton of snacks/candy to hold us over for the remainder of the trip. We then traveled 2 hours west to the dry forest where we have seen one scorpion and an abundance of iguanas. We also have a very nice viewing tower. I know you were all wondering about the juice and yes for lunch we were served peach tea with rice, beans and a side of beef with potatoes. After lunch we walked to the classroom to learn about the sea turtles. Why you might ask...because we are Sea Turtle watching until past our curfew...2am! Fun Facts: Sea Turtles' genders are determined by the temperatu...

Day 7 - Science  Science, and more Science Good morning. No internet again last night. the kids will finish this post as soon as they can. Everything is going better than could be expected. Yesterday, we woke up to the usual sounds of forest life and were fed a scrumptious breakfast of eggs, toast with cacao nibs, AMAZING Costa Rican coffee, and rice and beans! Next, we all continued to plow along with our science experiments, and at around noon, were given a taste of home: HAMBURGERS! Afterwards, we had a few hours to give our brains a much-needed break; most of us used that time to venture off once again to Pulperia Carolina and buy some local ice creams and candy! Soon thereafter, we were back at it again with our science experiments. My group continued to analyze the effects of varying levels of  Escovopsis  on a multitude of  Atta cephalotes  and  Acromyrmex  colonies, while Nina's group went to the field to conduct an experiment with the an...

Day 6 - Rainforest Hike and Science Hello everyone! It's Taylor and Lauren. First of all I would like to say hello to my Paulie, Mama, and Daddy. All is well and I am having a lot of fun, just like you said. -TayTay Breakfast was at 6am this morning so we could leave and go to a National Park (1.5hrs away) for a hike. It was beautiful and muddy, so multiple people slipped. We got to walk across little streams just like our horses did the other day. We now know how our horses felt just minus the weight of an extra human on our back. Along the way we saw some cool things including some vines that suffocate trees as they grow. Taylor was very sad because she thought they were just a pretty other kind of tree but apparently it meant that the tree was dying. Lauren thought it was very interesting. A few people got to see a possibly poisonous coral snake that the guide said could be up to 4.5 ft long but it was safe. We also saw a stick bug at the end and lots of leaf cutter ants al...

Day 5 - Horseback Riding and Cooking Class Today when we woke up it was raining extremely hard, we had to get up extra early at 5:30 to eat breakfast by 6:00. immediately after breakfast we got in the van to go horseback riding at 7:30. we left at 7:00 which allowed us to see some very cool views from the top of the mountain. after horseback riding we got free time until 2:00, so we walked down to the tiny store that seems to have everything you need in this town. After that we went to work on out science projects I never knew that we needed to use positive controls. We also checked on our bacteria from earlier in the week.  When the time came to end of our science for the afternoon, we once again loaded into vans to go to Aracelly's, a cafe where we got to help a local chef make dinner. We all got a chance to add ingredients to the big bowl over a fire, roll out tortillas, and make a salad. After much hard work, we finally got to to sit down and enjoy the delicious ...

Hello fellas, we lost internet connection yesterday so we were not able to blog as planned! Yesterday was an all science day. We all piled in on the tractor that took us around Colonia Libertad to see ant colonies and various other spots like the butterfly garden they just started and the small barn where they kept the caterpillars. The experts guided us around the sites and helped us observe the insects. We were taken to Arcelly to find an opening for a chamber for each group to dig into in hopes of finding a garden with a developed fungus. Some groups did not find any gardens, while others did. One group had found a dismembered queen ant hidden in a chamber near her colony. This happens when the queen starts a new colony too close to the other, the ants of that colony will kill her by splitting her up into pieces. Other groups found huge fungus gardens to take back to the lab. Once we were done with that part of the science, we were given a break in which we went down to a small sh...

A BLASTASTIC TIME By: The Judea Montoya and Leah Maher We started off our morning with a nutritious meal to fuel our brains for all the science we have endured today. We started by joining with our groups and receiving our question "Where does escovopsis grow in the ant colony?" Then we began using the scientific method to conduct an experiment, which involved particle placement-also known as using tweezers to jab particles into agar. They will be in the super fancy room temperature incubator until tomorrow. So check in tomorrow for an update on our fungus. Also on the agenda was a fantabulistic cross word about the immune system. We had a great lunch and then loaded into the vans to go to the zipline place. While we were there we saw some exotic animals (such as monkeys and sloths) we completed a 12 step course that was fun yet death defying, but we are all alive. Once we returned, we walked into the village and witnessed their butterfly house which also contained some...