#laselvabiologicalstation

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Great Currasow (male) Crax rubra hocofaisán, pavón norteño La Selva Biological Research Station Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui, Costa Rica 2017 #greatcurrasow #inthewild #laselvabiologicalstation #puertoviejodesarapiqui #costarica #bird #animal #yellownose #©lauraquick #travelphotography #travel #centralamerica #originalphotography #notatallafraidof me https://www.instagram.com/p/Byy3mtlHSRR/?igshid=6cqiyhklnur0

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[La Selva] Tuesday, 17 June 2014

Morning Activity: Botany WalkIn the morning NAPIRE students took an botany tour of the plants in the primary forest. Here are some snapshots from the tour.

After the botany walk, students were given an opportunity to experience the highest bits of the tree canopy by scaling up 39-meters above groun on permanent tower structure designed to do tree canopy research as well as collect environmental data.

Cherie scaling up 39-meters of stairs to the tops of the tree canopy.

Afternoon Activity In the afternoon, Dr. Wendy Kuntz delivered a powerful hands-on activity to explore measurements and variation in scientific data. The materials needed include: 10 peanuts, a ruler, and paper. Students were initially asked to describe 1 peanut.

Student annotating their observations of the peanut.

Then, they were asked to give their notes to a friend. Dr. Kuntz mixed the peanuts up on a table, and the friend had to find the peanut. 

NAPIRE students finding their partners peanut.

Dr. Kuntz opened a discussion to students on how to better describe the peanut to make it easier for anyone to find the aforementioned described peanut.

To learn about statistics, Dr. Kuntz asked all the students to measure ten peanuts, the maximum length.

The data was used to learn how to calculate mean, median, mode, standard deviation, and variance.

Each student calculated the information and all the data was transformed into a histogram.

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Collared Peccary La Selva Biological Research Station Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui, Costa Rica 2017 #collaredpeccary #inthewild #laselvabiologicalstation #puertoviejodesarapiqui #costarica #pig #animal #pinknose #©lauraquick #travelphotography #travel #centralamerica #originalphotography #portrait https://www.instagram.com/p/BykokixHm-h/?igshid=du5v6r00kxj8

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[La Selva] First Day

Wednesday, 11 June 2014 Early Wednesday morning, we left urban San Jose to the Tropical Forest of La Selva Biological Research Station. Our first day at orientation, we were given a welcome talk by Dr. Carlos de la Rosa, the Director of La Selva. He shared to the NAPIRE program the history of La Selva. La Selva is a special place in that it is the only Tropical Biology conservation area in Central America that is a completely preserved watershed from the lowlands to highest peak.

Dr. Carlos de la Selva welcoming NAPIRE students. He shares that our responsibility as scientists is to share the stories of nature to other scientists and most importantly to the greater community at large. He encourages our students to pick up many skills to share nature's story including embracing social media outlets like Facebook like pages, or taking pictures onto Instagram, or making videos for Vimeo or YouTube and many other ways to share the scientific narrative of nature  (Photo Credit: Lelemia Irvine, 11-June-2014).

(Photo Credit: Lelemia Irvine, 11-June-2014) A new feature in the program is our weekly "Stories We Tell" talk story. The purpose of this weekly discussion is to provide a safe place for students to reflect and share their stories of their observations, interactions, and experiences with Costa Rica. Our fist discussion, we all formally introduced each other to the group. In particular, each student and staff were given time to share "who are you?" "who are your people?" "where is your river, mountain, place you call home?". Some students introduced themselves traditionally in their own language and traditions to share a snippet of their life story and how they came to this program.

Bryan Tonga showing to other NAPIRE students where his island home of Pohnpei is on the map (Photo Credit: Lelemia Irvine, 11-June-2014).

After dinner, Teaching Assistants Nicole and Lelemia gave a safety briefing and risk management talk to the NAPIRE students. The purpose is to clearly explain the forest, health and theft dangers that tropical biologist face when working in the tropical forest. One lesson we learned of many included: always were your boots in the La Selva station.

[To be continued...]