This morning we had omelettes, juice, ham, and toast with crunchy jelly (the crunch was from ants). For the morning science experience, Dr. Pinto introduced us to how to find the ants. This included how to distinguish the nests of the two species, and how to dig up the fungus gardens. He showed us a mature nest with soldier ants, which he used as clothespins. Also, we learned how to avoid certain ants such as the ominously named fire and bullet ants. Along the route, a certain sweet potato-liked root fruit was found. We then dug up our own young colonies for experiments. The digging process was for the detail oriented, as being careful is of the utmost importance. Some colonies were a lot bigger than expected, some were deep, and some barely had any ants.
SOLDIER ANT HEAD PICTURE
Lunch was quite different from our earlier meals, as we were not served rice and beans, but rather a casserole with rice, heart of palm, potatoes, and cheese. After a short break, we drove off to go zip-lining.
Platform
The View
On the 40 minute car ride, we listened to "despacito" on loop. It was much too loud, despite the vigorous in-seat dancing. The zip-lining site was named Canopy Tours, named for the top layer of the rainforest. To get to the first zip-line platform, we had to take a treacherous hike. A few people nearly fell off the edge of the bridge. Zip-lining was fairly nerve wracking for a few, and quite difficult to get accustomed to, especially the braking method. There were multiple lines we zipped down, some being short and steep, while the last one was long and fast.
A few of us celebrating surviving the zipline by jumping in the pool after finishing, Ms. Leland started it.
Along the way, we saw furry caterpillars, bright spiders, large ants, beautiful vistas, toucans, and monkeys. At a few points, people were crammed onto tiny platforms until the weight limit was surpassed. After reaching bare ground, a pool party was initiated by a dramatic dive by Mrs. Leland. Many students joined in despite not wearing proper swim gear. After returning, we were treated to pork chops with with some sort of sweet red juice, possibly pomegranate. For dessert, we had a delicious vanilla sponge cake with condensed milk.
After dinner, we resettled our ant colonies into larger containers for our experiments. We then did an experiment collecting bacteria, in which we tried to predict the place with the most bacteria. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow; the start of our experiments. Happy father's day.
-Frank and Chris
3 comments:
It's so exciting that you're getting ready to start your experiments! And the ziplining adventure looks like it was a blast!
- Mike and Elena McFann (Lexie's parents)
Really enjoy your journals and pictures every day. And excite for all you to have the great experiments and funs in the first three days. Looking forward to hearing more from you! - Jian and Hai (Frank's parents)
Way to take adventure to the max. Great view from the top I bet!
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