Chocolate Tour, Lunch, and a Night Hike - Ryan Groza and John Vanetti

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...
After lunch, we had our first session, where we learned about the scientific method.  We were assigned groups and took on our first experiments revolving around the world of microbes within the community. Some groups focused on different bacteria levels in water while others observed natural vegetation. During this process, we also learned how to accurately collect specimens in petri dishes. We are still awaiting the results of our experiments! At night time, we took turns traveling in the rainforest for a night hike; this was our first experience in the rainforest. We encountered several species of insects and frogs.
Night hike in the rain forest with Alan (professor).



Glass Frog




Alan showing us a termite colony.

Ryan Groza
(Costa Rica Fam)

John Vanetti 
(Team Walter)







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 6 – Hot springs and Waterfall - Kaleb and Elijah

Image
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...
Read more

Costa Rica... where science comes to you!

Image
While in Costa Rica, science comes to you. These are just a few samples of things we have collected, most of them just flew into the classroom. Leafy Praying Mantas Bullet Ant Queen (not as dangerous as the males, but still packs a punch) Found outside the classroom. This pseudoscorpion was found on the teacher table. it is really small (as seen through the dissecting microscope). This is actually a bug that mimics the more poisonous scorpion.
Read more

Day 7: Science and a Cooking Class - Eliot Seifrit

Image
What a view! Eliot making the beans. Nice tortilla Cole. Great Celebration Today was our seventh day in Costa Rica and one of our last days on Pablo’s chocolate farm.   Also, today was one of our last days to finish up our projects.   Picking a question to do our research on was very difficult, but my group, the 3 A.M BEANS, finally decided on doing research on escovopsis growth in different aged atta ant colonies. The first day of our research we went into the woods to collect one fungus garden from three different ages of atta colony, young, medium, and mature.   Collecting the fungus garden was quite difficult, first you must find a tunnel in the colony that leads to the garden, then you must deal with the soldier ants while trying to extract the fungus garden.   First, we went the farthest into the woods to get the medium ages colony.   It didn’t take long to find the fungus garden but when we tried to take it out there were s...
Read more