Zostera
Tourist
Reged: 05/09/08
Posts: 2
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Howler Monkey in Mangrove Swamp, Tamarindo Wildlife Refuge, 2/18/08
Costa Rica Experience is a program available to Advanced Placement students at Sayville High School located on Long Island, New York. Students travel to Costa Rica each year to explore and conduct studies in their area of interest as it relates to the underlying theme for all disciplines, "sustainability".
Each year a different geographic region is chosen to highlight different natural resources and cultural variability within the country. Some of the places we have visited include: Santa Elena Cloud Forest, Manuel Antonio National Park, Rincon de la Vieja National Park, Isla Cana, Osa Peninsula, Corcovado National Park, Las Cruces Biological Field Station, Arenal Volcano, Las Baulas National Park, Tamarindo, Selva Verde, Proyecto Campanario, and many others.
Some of the ecological studies conducted have included leatherback turtles, mustache bat count and site utilization, cloud forest biodiversity, avian studies between highland and lowland rainforest, amphibian diversity in Guanacaste, secondary succession of volcanic soils at Volcan Arenal, mangrove swamp biodiversity, coral reef health, and volcanic geology.
Cultural studies have included Guanacaste carnival and rodeo, construction of a community center in La Virgin, soccer games with local students, Costa Rican school visits, lunch with a local family, residents in a sustainable village, and Wilson Botanical Garden invasive Species Eradication Program.
Two-toed Sloth, InBio Park, February, 2005
Keel-billed Toucan, lowland rainforest, Selva Verde, April, 2006
Blue Morpho Butterfly, lowland rainforest, La Savegre River, 2/17/07
Sayville Public School District
Edited by Zostera (05/16/08 09:02 AM)
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JavaGAR
Explorer
Reged: 10/07/06
Posts: 449
Loc: New York State
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Zostera:
The Costa Rica Experience looks like a great program. It offers an interdisciplinary immersion in natural science and other topical areas in a very interesting environment. I wish my high school had provided us with opportunities such as this one during my student days there.
In addition to the nice set of photographs in your posted message, you have embedded additional ones within the accompanying kmz file in order to include them in some of the placemark descriptions. I also prefer to embed images in kmz files rather than hyperlink to ones stored independently on a server, so that they are guaranteed to travel reliably with the verbal content. One necessary but minor caveat, though, is that when placemarks eventually become incorporated into the Google Earth Community layers, the embedded photographs are not included. See this post. On the other hand, many schools block specific web sites, including ones that host images, therefore hyperlinked images may appear as gray rectangles within the placemark bubbles, when viewed at those schools.
The students visit a great variety of locations during their stay in Costa Rica, which must be great fun. With the program's busy travel itinerary, are they afforded sufficient time to collect and analyze data in connection with their research projects?
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Zostera
Tourist
Reged: 05/09/08
Posts: 2
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Dear Java GAR:
Thank you for posting. I am new at using Google Earth and am thrilled to have the input from more experienced users. I investigated your comment regarding school blocks and access for viewing images and the benefit to embedding them is far greater than I had expected when designing this project. I plan to continue updating this, as I have four years of travel itinerary throughout the country and beautiful pictures with useful recommendations for traveling with students throughout Costa Rica. I welcome all comments and suggestions.
The itinerary is always packed with high adventure and learning. Students are encouraged to try activities outside of their comfort zone including ziplining, repelling, horseback riding, volcano climbing, white water rafting, and snorkeling.
The students are highly motivated Advanced Placement students. They attend 16 hours of lecture prior to departure to learn about the geography, geology, natural resources and climate zones, culture, politics, and economics. All students are required to keep a journal while on tour. Science students are instructed on how to keep a scientific journal, A.P. Spanish students must keep their journal in Spanish and work with both the guides and bus driver each evening to learn to write correctly and to learn local sayings, even slang. Art students use their media of choice and choose digital photos taken during the day to construct art works in the evening hours and post-tour works. Economic students focus on the project chosen for that tour. For example, in the past students have evaluated the true costing of a banana when considering all externalities, shade grown vs. sun-grown coffee, alternative energy, and the economics of a sustainable village. Science students have analyzed data collected on tour for mustache bat relative abundance and utilization, coral reef health based on relative species abundance/diversity as well as % bleached coral, leatherback turtle population threats based on changes in turtle nest abundance and changes in number of eggs/nest and hatchlings/nest over time. Advanced technology students videotape the entire trip and create a DVD for all participants. This DVD is presented at a Pot Luck Dinner approximately one month after the return date for family, friends, faculty, administrators, and the Board of Education. The dinner also highlights a photo gallery where all students frame and display two of their favorite photos and photo albums created with their journals.
ALL students present their findings in their classes following the AP Exams.
Thank you once again for responding to my post. I look forward to continued input from the Google Earth Community.
Best regards
Zostera
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