Just two days into our trip, and so much has happened in these projects. Although each project is different, one common denominator is that I am amazed at the adaptability these students have exhibited. Yesterday was incredibly full, with the bird and plant groups beginning their work with Geovanni at 6AM, while the mapping group located sites for their water data collection. They continued with a 3 mile hike at El Silencio, and later another 3 mile hike at the volcano, which ended in eating empanadas and fresh pineapple in the dark rainy night watching the glow of lava flowing down the volcano.
The plant group was somewhat discouraged by changes that would be inevitable in order to implement their project, but they have created a completely new plan that will ultimately be fantastic. The plant group has a great asset in Lorea, a fastidious notetaker who manages to keep up with the pace of the data no matter how fast the Spanish, common, or scientific names are given for each species. Mary has added her willingness to climb over or under any obstacle in order to tie a piece of flagging to mark a point. And Chris has brought his photography skills to the plant group, enabling them to document every species of plant they see, in the hopes of creating a guide to the plants here.
The mapping group has put in the most time on the trails, walking each of them twice today--once to map bird points, and the second to map the roads/trails themselves. Adaire has nearly mastered operating the Trimble field computer, although the very steep learning curve for the new technology was one of the concerns for the project. Samantha has found herself having to slide down a ravine in order to plant the Hobo temperature sensors, and has the ability to remain happy throughout. Noah is a very effective planner, and has worked well with Richard downloading the mapped data, displaying them, and making arrangements for the collaborative work to be undertaken with the other two groups.
Finally, the bird group has become fully absorbed in its work, finding that even today, when there is a chance to have a short afternoon break, they want to continue watching the birds that fly by. Adriane showed this to the fullest extent, creeping to the edge of the porch of the cabin to watch a flock of Red-legged Honeycreepers feed on fallen bananas. Katheryn kept up with the fast pace of the data collection this morning, including entering the finds on a very difficult-to-manage datasheet showing the locations of every bird sighted. Katherine continues to have a keen eye, and an ability to remember all the birds we have seen today when sighting them later, throwing out the names as though she had studied them for a much longer time.
Finally, Johanna is a great asset to all of the projects, dividing her time between the different groups, and finding out where she is needed most. She has helped with the mundane task of helping me buy food for lunches and protective rubber boots using only a list of shoe sizes, as well as technical tasks related to data from the Trimble and the Hobo sensors. Although I knew in asking her to be a part of this project that she was a great researcher, I have also learned that she is a very effective team leader.
The groups will continue to enter their reflections in the coming days--it is hard to believe today was only Day 1 of formal data collection, with four more remaining. I hope that the readers out there and the parents and friends of these students know how great they are, and how grateful I am that they are a part of this project.
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