Day 5
Thank you everyone for your encouragement! It has been so good to hear from you!
We started off the day with a quick hike to the local village center and learned the history of La Colonia Libertad, after which we went on a scavenger hunt around the town to meet with some of the locals and their small businesses. Our big event of the morning was a horseback ride up and around the volcano of Santa Maria, where the heavy rain and beautiful eucalyptus trees paled in comparison to the views of the mountain-top canopies. The rain felt like a cool refresh to our sore legs after hiking and being on horseback!
We then went back to the lab to begin the first preliminary tests of our final project's research, which looked different for each group.
Las Hormigas (Isabelle and Abby)- today we collected our first samples of bacteria that will be used for treatment exposures and hopefully inoculation. We also were able to isolate sheep ants from their colonies which will be used in said treatments. After dinner we went on a quick night hike with one of SOC's Staff Scientists (Miguel) and collected leaves some ants were carrying to culture back at the lab. Finally we prepared saline solutions, where Abby enjoyed using her CNA skills (a lot).
Las Tortugas (Kally)- My group ran a preliminary trial for our experiment. We switched the fungi gardens from an atta and an acromyrmex colony to see how the ants would respond to the new pheromones. So far the results have supported our prediction statement, and we plan to run more trials in the upcoming days. We also prepared our materials for our positive and negative controls which we will test tomorrow.
The Hawksbills (Aidan)- today we started our preliminary trials to perfect our procedure and our scale for measuring the ants aggression. We did multiple trials where soldier ants from different colonies interacted with each other in the presence of some of their fungus garden and observed some very interesting behavior. We also started to figure out how many ants we should use to create an increase of aggression towards other ants and the best environment to do the trials in.
The Treehuggers (Kenya and Amelia)- Today our group decided on a new topic question. We went out into the rainforest and collected multiple samples of dirt from different areas of the atta ant colony mounds (tunnels, fungus garden, vents). We had some great fun with the ants in the forest. 😆 Then we went back to the research center and put dirt samples into vials of saline solution. This was a very tedious process but we had so much fun doing it.
Community scavenger hunt
Stop on the scavenger hunt.
Looks like you had a very full day. We love the braids Abby!
ReplyDeletePhotographs/journaling reassure families of ‘once in a lifetime’ student adventure. Local culture; horseback riding ❤️.
ReplyDeleteThank you for examples of student study.. G&GL
What a wonderful and educational grand adventure you're all having! Soak in every minute!!
ReplyDeleteHey Isabelle. Your mom's cell service isn't good at the moment, she wants you to know that she's seeing the blogs and is thinking of you. And of course have a great time!!
ReplyDeletePhew, good thing you clarified that the picture was the Policia was part of the scavenger hunt! ;-) Looks like an amazing day! It doesn't surprise me that Kally is working with ants. When she was a toddler, other kids were stomping on ants, and she and her brother were calling them "adorable" and building little mazes with sticks and bringing them food. Tomorrow (7/28) is Kally's 17th birthday! Happy Birthday, Kally!!! We love you and miss you lots! We shall thoroughly torture your twin brother with celebrations, but save plenty of it for you when you get home.
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