Background
 

¿Qien soy yo? (Who am I?)	A teacher of science and math in for 10 years in Minneapolis Public Schools, I have been teaching an interdisciplinary math/science block at a K-8 middle school.  Next year, I will be moving to Henry High School. Click here for Minneapolis Public Schools
Tropical Experience:	Lived for 4 years at Projeto Jari, a reforestation project in the Amazon rainforest.  Bicyled 3400 km. (2100miles) with one of my 3 sons from Salvador to Belem along the Brazilian coast.
Interests:	Worked with Nature Conservancy on preserving tall grass prairie and oak savanna at Minnesota sites.(Click here to go to the Nature Conservancy) Community research projects with students on trail maintenance and river clean-up
Goals for Woodrow Wilson Environmental Science Project: Click here for WWNFF	Improve my ability to use inquiry process with students:to develop their ability to ask measurable questions for science investigation,  design experiments to carry out their investigation, and communicate their results. Learn field biology methods which can abe adapted for use in middle and high school classrooms. Bring experience, knowledge and excitement about tropical ecologies back to my students. Use this experience to provide additional background to develop a high school Environmental Science curriculum to meet new state standards. Improve my Spanish.

¿Como fue la experiencia? (What was it like?)
 

San Jose, Costa Rica	After a late arrival, the Hotel Irazu was a welcome sight. The next morning, after a delicious breakfast of tropical fruits, we started to work.  As in all these wonderful programs, the designers always have many more activities they would like to include than they have time for, so the schedule went from early morning (6 AM breakfast) to late evening (9 PM) with fascinating presentations on wildlife, plants, geology and history of Costa Rica. We saw live snakes, learned about the many poisonous ones, and handled a beautiful harmless one.  After a short trip downtown to see the Mercado (market), and purchase a Spanish dictionary plus tall rubber boots for mucking around in the field, we  left early the next morning on a bus with Don Manuel, our Tico (Costa Rican's name for themselves)  bus driver and general problem solver.
Palo Verde National Park Click here to learn about Palo Verde	Up the Pan American Highway to Guanacaste in the northwest corner of Costa Rica.  This park preserves a portion of tropical dry forest, one of the most threatened ecosystems worldwide. Our 'hotel' is a little rustic for some of the group - cold showers, no AC, and mosquitos, although many fewer than Minnesota in the summer.  We went for a night hike after dinner and saw how you could find many animals by the light reflected in their eyes.  ((Spiders have green 'eyeshine'.) Next day we climbed a 125 meter (400 foot) limestone cliff with a view of the Lagoon.  The picture above shows what it was like collecting data for our research there. Our project at Palo verde compared the biodiversity at 3 sites: two of them in the lagoon which is a disturbed site with invasive plant species such as Typha (cattails) and a third with minimal human impact.  The picture above shows our group collecting in the cattails.(Click here if you would like to read our research report)  We went down the Tempisque River and saw howler and white capuchin monkeys, as well as lots of green iguanas, numerous birds, and a fleeting glimpse of a crocodile. (Quite a difference from rivers in Minnesota.) The next day we were off to La Selva on the eastern side of the mountains.  We said our sad goodbyes to our wonderful friends at Palo Verde and got ready for another exciting experience.
La Selva (Click here to find out about La Selva)	The best part of the ride from Palo Verde to La Selva was a stop at Tabacon Fuente Caliente (Hot Springs) in the volcanically formed cordilleras (mountains) which divide Costa Rica.  The water forms numerous pools and small falls running through a beautiful tropical garden.  No one was in a hurry to leave.  Higher humidity, but fewer insects greeted us at La Selva, including a suspension bridge over the Rio Puerto Vieja (Old Port River). A night hike introduced us to one of the most colorful inhabitants of the rainforest - the poison arrow frog which is bright red with blue hind legs. Our project here focused on a species of leaf-cutting ant - Acromyrmex volcanus - that is only found in Costa Rica.  (Click here to read the research paper.) These ants use the leaves, flowers, and seeds they bring back to the nest to grow fungus which provides their food. One of the scientists we worked with done 1 study on this species, so we decided to build on what he had done.  First we tried to find the ants' nest, and then measure the distance from there to where they were gathering their food.  We also looked at what kind of things they were collecting. Out time here was too short to really appreciate the enormous diversity and complexity of a tropical rainforest, but it gave us enough of a glimpse to encourage me to return soon.
Las Cruces (Click here to find out about Las Cruces)	Our trip to this site in the south of Costa Rica close to the border with Panama included a lovely overnight stay on the Playa Ballena on the Pacific coast.  We stayed at a marvelous ecologically designed hotel called Finca Tres Hermanas (3 Sisters Resort) using solar power, locally harvested, wood, and other natural materials.   The road to Las Cruces climbed since this site is located in the mountains at about 1150 meters (3600 feet).  The weather is still humid with lots of rain, but the temperature went down, and we are even sleeping with blankets!  The forest here is different, but equally beautiful.  We went 'swimming' in a lovely stream (in only about 3 feet of water).  Our cafeteria has a balcony which looks out over the valley and we can usually see the rainclouds rolling up at lunch time. My project here looked at the soil characteristics among pasture, second growth and old growth forests.  We compared temperature, pH, composition, density, and moisture.
Final Thoughts	The diversity of the environment is overwhelming, but equally diverse are the people we have met and worked with.  It is very easy from the outside to support the many 'save the rainforest' campaigns.  But I think we need to ask ourselves this question: What am I willing to change or give up in my life to help the people who live here? The colonials who immigrated to the US cut down 95% of the forests east of the Mississippi and plowed almost all of the tall grass prairie in the first 200 years after arriving.  We are now just beginning to restore some of these severely damaged ecosystems.  How can we ask people who live on one tenth or even one hundredth of what we earn to give up a main source of their income for the sake of the planet's future?  What is our responsibility for the Earth's future when the United States uses many more resources per person than any other country?  It seems to me that we need to share our resources with others before we can expect them to limit their use of tropical forests. Please write me at mary moreira@rdale.k12.mn.us with any responses to my thoughts above, or questions about the Institute, the research, or the trip.