Passport+Arrival-++Projects+underway!

Finally my passport has arrived! Although the picture is not too flattering at least I will now be able to get into Costa Rica. The seventh and eighth grade students are doing a great job researching their projects. Most students are busy working on the Costa Rican menu ( anything to do with food is usually a pretty popular topic). Yesterday students worked on the map of Costa Rica and the flag of Costa Rica.I am hopeful that the projects will be complete in time for Open House. I know that parents would love to see what we have been doing in Spanish The sixth graders are also working on their World Celebration projects. The library has a great selection of encyclopedia type books which focus solely on World Holidays, so they have been a great resource. The Toyota Teachers Program has also just sent me my itenerary for the trip.We fly into San Antonio, Texas which is great because I do teach a lesson on the history of San Antonio.The next stop is San Jose, the capital odf Costa Rica where we will study Costa Rica's approach to environmental challenges and solutions. Our group will visit a private bilingual school, we will tour the U.S. embassy and pay a visit to a Pre - Columbian archeological site. Our next stop is the Earth University in Guacimo where we will study sustainable agricultural such as integrated farming systems and periurban agriculture. I know very little about farming, although this summer my family did have a small garden where we grew tomatoes,pumpkins,sunflowers,and cucumbers. Hopefully I will learn some more techniques to grow a bountiful harvest for next Fall. From Guacimo we go on to La Selva, Sarapiqui where we will study biodiversity how cacao grows and work on a service project involving native plants and invasive species. I am looking forward to learning about cacao as I would love to implement a lesson on the history of chocolate in Latin America.Who doesn't love chocolate?!? La Fortuna is our next destination where we will study ecotourism which is so great because that is the focus of my project!In fact the students in my 7th and 8th grade classes have already begun to learn about Arenal and La Fortuna ( so named because it was the town that sprung up after a devastating volcano in 1968 destroyed surrounding towns),la fortuna means fortune or luck in Spanish.We will also be studying geologic history and volcanic activity while in La Fortuna.

And finally we go back to San Jose to study carbon neutrality and have a final debrief, then it is time to say Adios to Costa Rica and back to cold Rhode Island!