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| Welcome back!!!
I hope you had a wonderful vacation. I certainly did. Let me share a little of my excellent Costa Rican adventure with you and also catch you up on what we are doing with GLOBE this year. |
This is a poison dart frog found in the rain forest of La Selva, one
of the largest research stations for tropical studies in the world.
It is one of three locations run by the Organization for Tropical Studies
(OTS) in Costa Rica.
La Selva
This is the first stop on our world wind tour of research stations in
Costa Rica, which is located northeast of San Jose in an area of tropical
rain forest . There is so much to see here from large mammals like monkeys
and sloth, to delicate leaf cutter ants, who's intricate trails wind through
the forest with moving waves of green . Spectacular colors of frogs and
insects as well as a wide variety of plants and fungi carpet the jungle
floors and decorate the trees and bushes. It was sensory overload with
many night hikes to catch the forest at it peak of activity. The project
done at La Selva was a study of the mutualism between aztec ants, cecropian
trees, and the use of homopterans. For more information click
here.
This is the silhouette of an adolescent three toed sloth.
They move very slowly and are usually hard to find since they stay
high in the tree tops of the rain forest.
Las Cruces
We continued our journey across the mountains and through the central
valley to the southern corner of Costa Rica. This station is located four
kilometers from the border to Panama and is a combination of gardens and
fragmented rain forests. It was like being in "Club Med"! The Wilson Botanical
Gardens surrounded the OTS station with beautiful house plants and exotic
plants and herbs from Costa Rica and other tropical locations. The rain
forest had a river with waters that cascaded over rocks and water falls
which provided refreshment on hot afternoons. The research done here involved
the effects of human disturbance on the heliconia plant by examining pH
at various locations. For more information click
here.
This is a strangler fig which surrounds a tree and then eventually
kills it.
As you can see the tree is dead and only the empty space remains.
Palo Verde
This was the last OTS station that we visited which was located in the
northwest corner of Costa Rica in a province called Guanacaste. It was
the frontier with grasslands and caballeros on horseback. We climbed large
limestone mountains in the dry forest and visited the marshland and rice
field with their beautiful display of birds. The stay involved horseback
riding in the forest and marshes, and a boat ride down the Rio Tempisque,
where our guide showed us the mangroves and fauna of this unpolished region.
This untamed and sometimes intangible station was definitely not the most
comfortable at times but will leave me with my warmest memories. The project
that we work on was a comparison of soils in pasture land and dry forests
to see if the pasture could properly succeed back to primary forest. For
more information click here.
This is a tree with white storks which we happened upon during our horseback
ride through
the marshes one morning.
This wonderful trip involved three groups of teachers from which group
2 was superior. Just kidding my compadres!
This is my web page, but each teacher on the trip is setting up there
own page with their own personal pictures, thoughts and projects. This
fellowship was sponsored by the Woodrow
Wilson Foundation which has a link to each teachers page as well as
other information on activities for teachers and students alike. For more
information on this information link to the web page.
Other links
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