Juan is one of the graduate school students working with us. He is well known for finding a frog from a species that was believed to be extinct. He is the go to guy if you find a toad, frog, or other hopping creature around the grounds. When he sees a frog, he leaps like an amphibian to catch it.

Costa Rica Day 6 (June 2, 2016)

Cameron and Jacob Smith authored this blog. Today, we worked all day in the field on our research projects.

Lily, Sarah, Joey, Sam, and Harrison researched the difference between the cultivable bacteria on the frogs and lizards by catching frogs and lizards and sampling them.

Peter, Olivia Bassetti, Michaela, and Shelby worked with ants and leaves trying to determine if there is a natural repellent for ants by collecting ants and experimenting on them.

 Ryan, Jacob Smith, Derek, and Jake Cedric researched different ant pheromones: alarm, colony, and trail; they experimented by using obstacles, ants from rival colonies, and the pheromones from other colonies.

Sara, Chase, Matt, and Patrick "Failed at digging up ant colonies, but don't worry they eventually got it... kind of,  (JK :))". Sara successfully prevented a forest fire.

Cameron, Eric, Jordan, and Scott started off by going off into the forest and collecting ants. Then we took the ants back to the laboratory and crushed ants based on their working class and put them on petri dishes.

Julie, Emma, Travis, and Anthony tested for BD (batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) in frogs by cutting the frogs' toes off and putting them under a microscope (the toes will grow back).

Olivia Simpson, Jacob Steel, and Jacob Romines tested fungi's affect on ants by encircling them in escovopsis fungi and seeing if the ants could pass the circle.

Conner, Mickie, CJ, and Edward tested the aggression of frogs in a lab by watching them jump around for hours, as Conner says.

Trinity and Lexington Catholic have really bonded over the past days as you can see by all four lunch tables having members of both school. It's been a great opportunity to meet new people in our state.

Costa Rica Day 5 (June 1, 2016)

Hello family and friends! Tonight's blog is brought to you by Olivia Bassetti and Sarah Simon-Patches.  Today began as usual with a great breakfast of eggs, rice and beans, fresh fruit, and grilled cheese (that was actually placed on a grill by itself!) bright and early at 7:30 AM. Our day of work also began early with a trip into the village at 8:30. There, we worked with an inspirational group of women who started a community garden and work space where they hand-make gorgeous jewelry. We helped them by weeding the garden and painting their fence. It was here that we encountered the terror of fire ants. These things are no joke. But the experience and the results were SO worth it. There's nothing like seeing how much your work can improve others' lives.
After our morning of service, we came back for a lunch of salad, fish, and rice and beans. Our break after lunch was short, because we had to go straight into science. A meeting with Mrs. Formisano and Mr. Dorsett inspired us to continue to work hard on our experiments and presentations. We worked on these projects until 4:45, when we walked 15 minutes back into the village for a cooking class. Here, we split into groups to divide and conquer making dinner. Some of us made corn tortillas, some made chicken, and others made cheese and salad. We're pretty sure we weren't much help, but we had so much fun and learned a lot about Costa Rican cuisine. After solving a near-impossible riddle, we headed back to Finca La Anita to start gathering the materials we need for our experiments. For most of us, this included a trip into a rainy rain forest to find frogs, and others stayed in the lab to prepare colonies for their ants.
Finally, after a long day, we are signing off and heading to bed. We look forward to the adventures of tomorrow.

Costa Rica Day 4 Afternoon

Mrs. Formisano has already detailed our morning activities, but the afternoon and evening were just as action-packed! After lunch, which consisted of delicious pasta and garlic bread, the students were given roughly an hour of free time until 2 PM. Many students chose to walk to the "mall" in the village about a half mile away to buy candies, soda, and snacks. Then it was right back to science! We were arranged into new groups based on our research interests - the general categories were frogs and ants. We spent roughly 2 hours developing our hypothesis, prediction, and experimental design as a group. After a quick coffee break accompanied by a sweet pastry to refuel, we continued refining and revising our final experimental designs by creating a PowerPoint to present to the students, teachers, and scientists later that evening. We enjoyed dinner at 6 PM that included beef, potatoes, vegetables, greens, and a dessert that was similar to cheesecake. Then BACK TO SCIENCE! It was now time to present the research plans to the group. Between 7:30 and 10 PM each of the 8 groups presented their separate research projects, all of which addressed different questions regarding leaf-cutter ants, frogs, insects, and bacteria or fungus. The projects are highly interesting and ambitious, and you will be hearing more about them in the future. No spoilers!

Here is Pinto showing us the schedule for the day - stations in the morning, experiment design in the afternoon, and presentations at night.

 Happy students walking back from the mall during free time after lunch with snacks in hand!

We apologize for not having pictures of the afternoon and evening work - we were too busy sciencing! More pictures tomorrow!

Shelby Hammonds and Michaela Reinhart

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Learning about true scientific research before designing our own research projects

Working on microbes and disease portions of their science packets.

"Fanta Four" research team

"Team Joey Stickler"

Not a bad classroom, no?

We can tell you the Family and whether this is a frog or a toad. . . . .

Church

This is a photo of the Catholic Church is La Anita.  Simple and beautiful!