2019TrinityMercyCostaRicaTrip

Mr. Hammer jumping in the waterfall. Hello, our names are Kaleb and Elijah. Today we went on a trail near volcanic grounds. After the treacherous walk, we made it to the hot springs. They were pretty relaxing besides the semi-intense sulfur smell. After that we headed to a little pool in front of a waterfall. About half of us swam because the rest were too tired. After we got back to the house near the beginning of the trail, we had lunch that consisted of wrapped hot ham and cheese, chips, and little Costa Rican cookies. We got back on the bus for another hour and thirty-minute drive back to Finca La Anita. Once we got back C.O.N.G. did tests with different leaves and how the ants responded, after all that we had dinner and are continuing our experiments. Kaleb Having Fun in Hot Springs Smells like sulfur. Today, we woke up early to head to Ricon volcano, the hike was 3 kilometers to the hot springs. During the hike we saw a mountain crab (those exist?) an...

A group of Trinity and Lexington Catholic students are extracting toad secretions to test if they are toxic to leaf cutter ants. Awesome. They have even developed an extraction method to get the Cane Toad toxins and use them in their experimental design. Getting ready to extract the puss. Homemade Hazmat Suit One holds the animal, one pops the pimples, and one collects the puss.

Yesterday they finished a small harvest of the cocoa plants. These will be used to make delicious chocolate bars and spreads.

Great day in the jungle. Swimming in a waterfall at Rincon de la Vieja National Forest

Madison, Ryan G., Ryan C., and Kieran. A small group of students are doing research on the different stages of a butterfly life cycle. This work is being done under the watchful eye of Silver (a graduate student at UCR who studies microbiology in insects). Silver is teaching the students several techniques, such as: * serial dilution * aseptic techniques * plating and growing bacteria in several media * dissection techniques for larval, pupa, and adult stages of butterflies * and much more. Pupa stage of Morpho. Removing the intestinal tract without perforating the gut.  Ryan doing a serial dilution. Silver showing the group how to plate the bacteria. Dissecting a blue morpho butterfly.

Yum! Look at our leaf cutter ant bite marks. Watch them cut the leaf. I am Kyle. To start of the day, we went to a place about 15 minutes away to ride horses. At first I did not do to well, but then I really excelled and did great. My horse went very fast. After the horses we all got sodas at the restaurant near by. The sodas here are amazing. Once we got back we had some free time until lunch. Lunch was muy Bueno today. Tienas Hielo means “Do you have ice”. The cafeteria lady gave me ice once but not dos times. I have learned a lot of Spanish on this trip. After lunch we waited until 2pm to start science. Are group the CONGS only consisted of 3 people today since one of them was sick. Our question is wondering if the maturity of the gmellina leaves affects the preference of the ants. Are hypothesis is that it does and that they will like more mature leaves because it has more nutrients. We worked on that today and found out that it might be the opposite, but we ...

The road to the village (Heath). View of the cabins (Heath). This morning was another morning of waking up at 6:45 and trying to get Jake out of bed. This morning we had the best breakfast yet with pancakes and eggs. After this we went to the classroom to check out our experiment from two days ago. Our group (the 3 A.M. Beans) had a sort of successful experiment with bacteria all over our dishes like planned. We went on for the rest of that session of class watching two movies about the leaf cutter ants. The next thing we had was lunch which was also the best so far with spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic toast. After this we had a short break, so I decided to wander around the farm and take pictures. I spent thirty minuets taking pictures until I got back and hung out with a few friends at the cabin. Then at 2 our next class began with our group discussing which major project we wanted to do. It took some time, but we finally ended up with something we could all agre...

Tuesday 5/28/19 we had delicious eggs with yogurt, then we went on nature hike to scout out different ant colonies. we were learning how to distinguish atta ants from acroymierimex ants, and how they differ with their house design and their head shape. After hiking for about an hour, and learnin how to dig up both kinds of ant colonies, we started to dig up the fungus gardens for ourselves then taking it back to the lab. I was in the group Costa Rica Fam, and we dug up an atta ant colony. We took the fungus garden with the queen and we contained it for later studies. I dug all the way to the fungus garden but you have to do it in a very special way. First you have to start digging next to the ant colony because you will collapse the tunnels if you dug it from the top. After I found the tunnel from the side I carefully scraped the dirt all the way to the fungus garden to extract it. -Kieran Heintz I was in the JagRocks group and we dug up a small and immature ...

Bus ride to the cloud forest.  The hike up... not easy, but not too hard. Go Rocks! Up in the canopy.  Brian getting ready to go. Smile Go Chase!

Today was the first day collecting and preparing colonies to study in the lab. Dr. Pinto spent the morning showing the students how to identify and then extract colonies (and hopefully with the queen) to bring back to the lab. Team Jag Rocks figuring out how to dig out the Atta cephalotes colony. Mr. Ibrahim is an expert ant guy (actually he is more of a bacteria guy). Ella scooping out the leaf cutter ant fungus garden.  Success... Jack with his colony.

The Chocolate Tour    Pablo gives the students a brief history on the diffusion of cacao as a crop, luxury good, and even currency.  It traveled from South America to southern Mexico, and eventually European methods commercialized it into the food we know today. Cheers! Pralines and blackberry chocolate... made that morning.  Enjoying a cup of Mexican hot chocolate "chocolatl". It is made with freshly roasted cacao nibs, organic sugar, fresh vanilla bean, and a hit of chili. No milk is used in this recipe, as cattle were not present on the American continent before European settlement.  Jack and Luke Cacao tree on the farm.  We learned about the different categories of cacao plant. Pablo preparing a tasting of raw cacao seeds.  The beans are covered in a white fruity pulp that tastes like mango. Pablo preparing a hearts of palm ceviche for the students. Fresh from the plant that he cut before our eyes....