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I, Leslie Brinson, am a biology and environmental science teacher
at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, North
Carolina. I have not been to the tropics since 1972 when I was a graduate
student in Guatemala. I jumped at the opportunity to come to Costa Rica
and learn how to develop activities that would address real environment
problems in this tropical paradise
La Selva
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This wedding veil fungus is indicative of the many exotic symbiotic
relationships that are abundantly obvious in the lowland tropical rain
forest. I had read about many of these special relationships, but
until I smelled this foul fungi and heard its spore disseminating flies
it was all academic.
We did a project on how epiphytic tank bromeliads obtain water through their leaves. We found trichomes that absorb water from the air and from their tanks. Read more about our experiment on the project page. |
Las Cruces
| The Wilson Botanical Garden has especially beautiful bromeliads. At this site we did a project on flowers and their pollinators. We created a matrix of artificial flowers with different combinations of colors and smells. Not surprisingly our flowers only attracted bees and flies. How could they compete with the exotic flowers of the tropics with their contrasting colors, musky smells, and specialized shapes? Read more about our pollinator preferences project on the project page. |  |
Palo Verde
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Mark and I had the joy of counting all the protists and invertebrates
that we found living on Nymphae leaves. We compared
the diversity of these organisms at two sites, a typha marsh and an open
water area in the Palo Verde Marsh. We wanted to see if competition
between the typha and water lilies would be reflected in the organisms
that lived on their leaves. Actually our analysis showed that since
the Nympha growing alone had more than twice the leaf surface area as the
Nympha growing with the typha, we could not compare their diversity of
the organisms growing on these two sets of leaves.
This research experience illustrated that a one day pilot study only allowed us to work out our design and sampling techniques. This was nevertheless an extraordinary learning experience, because now we have a better understanding of the the process of inquiry. Read more about our experiment on our project page. Palo Verde is the most beautiful of the three sites. The view from the limestone cliffs of the Tempisque watershed is especially breathtaking. This is a Ramsar site because its wetland are critical to much of the wildlife of this tropical dry forests. |
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