The end of the journey

The Tropical Ecology & Conservation Summer 2017 program has come to a end.  For 2 months the students experienced the life of a Tropical biologist exploring the different ecosystems of Costa Rica.

For 16 days of those 2 months, the students lived in homestay with Costa Rican families while working on their independent research project, during this time the students have the opportunity to practice their Spanish with their new families and get immerse with a new culture, for some of the students this is one of the highlihgts of the program.  As a farewell CPI, the Spanish language center, organize a picnic with the students and all the families that hosted them during this time, and the students give a presentation in Spanish in which they put their best effort in showing all the cultural and language learning they got during their time in Costa Rica.

Drew Rosso (University of Notre Dame) with his homestay mom Virginia Trejos and his tico sisters.

Amanda Ogden (Utah State University) enjoying some final time with Yadira Loría her homestay mom for two weeks.

Christine Bradley (California Polytechnic State University) posing for the last memory with her mom Miriam and brother Andrey from the Ortega Salas family.

The last days at the Biological Station has been focused on putting all the information gather from the independent research into a written format; but also as a good practice for future professionals the students have to prepare an oral presentation about the findings of the research they conducted for a little over two weeks; during this symposium the students have to opportunity to show to the staff, their classmates and the general public the really interesting scientific findings about the different topics studied in Monteverde.

Derek Frank (University of Minnesota-Twin Cities) talking about the spiders webs found in bromeliads and how they act as keystone species for the communities of invertebrates found there.

Talking about a really interesting topic on fire resistance in different species of Cloud Forest trees here it is Vikram Norton from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Jimmy Webb (University of Arkansas) explaining his results about the anti-bacterial properties of some medicinal plants used by locals in the Monteverde Community.

It has been an amazing journey for the students and staff of the Summer 2017 Tropical Ecology & Conservation program and hopefully all the learning lessons and the whole experience will stay with the students for a really long time and will be apply to their professional careers and life.  It is time for the students to go back home, but on the way back to San José we have a last short trip to Arenal to enjoy the beauty of the volcano and enjoy some time at the hot springs.

Sarah Aitken (University of Pennsylvania) enjoying the view of Arenal volcano.