DAY 1-6

BLOG 1:

Here in Belize it is 5:20 pm, 6MAY2013 and we are done for the day. Sitting on the porch of the Las Cuevas Forest Research Station. Light cloud cover, and no electricity.

The time we have spent here thus far has already been an intense experience between the culture of the people, the homemade food we have shared, the rivers we swam in, and the Mayan ruins we have explored.  The staff here  is very polite and informative with all of our studies and activities and the food they have prepared for us is genuine/traditional food of the region.

So far we have explored the nearby forest which taught us how to set transects in the jungle, proper research and data collection techniques, and most importantly we have worked on our team building skills. The group was broken into two teams of students who were charged with particular missions and parameters. The teams would create a strategy and everyone would carry out their own task for the team. This caused some disagreements among students, but for the most part students are learning to excel in not only their scientific tasks but also their critical thinking skills.

Just yesterday I noticed particular students stepping up to take charge in a foreign environment. Some students learned to work together after a disagreement and others simply followed instruction from a random leader. I noticed the leaders were learning what it’s like to take charge and not have perfect reactions from your team members. This is a good learning experience for anyone.

Another thing we learned yesterday was during our measuring activity in the Mountain Pine Forest. We had a perfect plan, strategy, and good momentum but then something happened to our system and it stopped our entire operation—a swarm of African Killer Bees flew just by our transects. This caused us to abandon our operations until the bees passed by, however, they did not go away so we were forced to stop for the day. Boris (our guide and lead biologist at the Chiquibul forest) explained that we cannot attempt to work near the bees as they are extremely dangerous.

On our way home we swam in a local river and rode the rapids for quite a while. I am sure the videos for this are posted. This was an exhilarating way to end our day, not to mention the wild macaws we came across on the way to the research station.