Hello again!
All is going well. I am in town for the part of the day with the several students who are conducting interviews for their project about the use of plant-based/home remedies and modern medicine. Yesterday morning it was raining hard, so we tucked into the cover of the ITEC lab and library to do background research for the science projects, further develop our experimental methods, and gather and prepare supplies.
We’ve been modifying the projects as needed due to the weather. The rain let up a bit in the afternoon so some of the coral reef based groups headed out to see if they could start to gather data. Jesse and Jeff dove in and took some underwater movies of different quadrants of coral, with an occasional moment of high wave action that rocks and sweeps the brave cameraman! These two along with Sarah, MJ, Niko, and Tilly who are eager to study sea urchin distribution, and took the boat with Enrique and Juan to another coral reef area “Pete’s reef” near a river outlet by the mangroves. The group made a valiant effort to run their transects and collect data, but the run-off from the river made the area too turbid and close encounters with the spiny urchins a little bit too close for comfort. So, today they will investigate looking into the movement patterns of another echinoderm, perhaps the cushion star or another species of sea urchin which hides in little nooks in the rocky intertidal areas.
The group studying leaf cutter ants, Kate, Peter and Briana found some great colony mounds to study and completed a little preliminary experiment. We are crossing our fingers that the rain will let up tonight so there will be enough ant activity to observe.
The gecko group, Alex, Will, Aundre and Amelia set up their sugar experiment after much pounding of nails to secure plastic cups full of different concentrations sugar on the station walls and they will continue to observe these four sites in the following evenings. Amelia and Steve are also jumping into wilds of micro-photography, creating some amazing pictures of pollen grains and discovering special nectaries on the Noni fruit that attract pollinators. (photos to come soon we hope!)
Despite the rain a brave group trekked out last night for two hour night hike along the coast and back into some primary forest, bringing back stories of red-eyed tree frogs and caymans among other cool night creatures. Another group of us stayed a bit more dry (the roof was leaking in some spots) inside the classroom and watched a documentary”Se quema el cielo” about protecting and managing fires in the Guanacaste Conservation Area. In the next couple of days we will continue with the group projects, visit nearby caves, and take a trip along the canal that runs all the way to the Changuinola River from the Serrapta Pennisula. You can see the canal cut if you zoom in on this google satellite map
Check out some new student blog entries:
Student blog