Hey Everyone,
Diadema antillarum
Our time here at ITEC so far has been filled with excitement from our time spent snorkeling to our hikes in the forest. We are also making preparations for our small group projects centered around the environment in and around Ísla Colón. For example, Jayson and I are studying urchin size in relation to its proximity to coral in the close by reefs. This topic involves a lot of snorkeling, so I am having a great time swimming, collecting data, and seeing pufferfish, stingrays, and obviously urchins. 
Yesterday, as we were hiking in the forest adjacent to the ITEC campus, we all learned about poison dart frogs, and even saw a toucan! We learned about the abiotic factors that contribute to the make-up of the forest environment and asked ourselves twenty questions about what we saw. My favorite part of ITEC so far was seeing all of the monkeys, iguanas, and native animals. Hopefully, with luck we will see more.
Adios,
Rachel
Salut à tous,
Ben and I (“Tommy”) have also been enjoying our time here at the Institute for Tropical Ecology and Conservation. Ben has spent much of his free time feeding helpless ants to ailing spiders, whereas I have been trying my best to discourage him. Together we are working on a project that’s a little different from the others, wherein we will be speaking to the Ngäbe people, who are native to the area. Tomorrow we will begin conducting our survey, which mainly concerns their
Monkeys!
employment, while also looking into their opinions of local tourism and the Panamanian government. Today, in preparation, we walked to their small town of Bocas del Drago, which was only as far away as a short walk past some mopey cows. We saw houses, churches, a school, the occasional person, and a particularly angry dog. Tomorrow we will return to the town with Mitzy, as well as Alli, a UTSA anthropology graduate student who is currently staying at ITEC and studying tourism on the island (she showed us the way into town today).
Hasta luego muchachitos,
- Tommy and the musical stylings of Ben
Below is a list of student projects at ITEC
– Steve
Ben & Tommy – Ngäbe history and language: interviews with people in the nearby village of Boca del Drago
Casey – Geometry of leaf cutter ant trails in meadow vs forest.
Hanna, Issac & Lucas – Reaction and recovery times in two species feather duster worms
Hannah & Lila – Length of time it takes female and male poison dart frogs, Oophaga pumilio, return to home area after being relocated various distances away.
Jalen, Josh & Max – Population density of poison dart frogs, Oophaga pumilio, in old growth and earlier successional forests
Jayson & Rachel – Distribution of different sizes of the sea urchin Diadema antillarum in in relation to its proximity to coral in the close by reefs
Sabrina – At dusk, do bats of the genus leave their daytime perches due to light levels or time of day. Other bat behavior.