Chanhassen High: The STORMy Scientists!

This morning was bittersweet, but not good like the chocolate we're going to bring home. Personally, I (Kaylee) think we'd all like to stay quite a bit longer and work with the ants, although I know we're starting to miss home. Our final breakfast in the Ranch at Finca La Anita was quieter than normal; that was because about half the group was packed into the little gift shop buying chocolate and last minute gifts. That morning, we had packed our suitcases and left them outside our cabins for Eddie, one of the van drivers, to pick up and put on top of the bigger van. As we left, Pablo and Ana came to say goodbye to us. We're one of many groups that come during the summer, but I hope they remember us. We drove away listening to Disney music from Grace's iPad in the smaller van as we took last minute videos and pictures of Finca La Anita. We hadn't made it 5 minutes away from the farm when the vans pulled over and we stopped outside a small building attached to ...

Hello family and friends in los estados unidos! Today was our last full day at Finca la Anita. We started our day at the regular time and had a great breakfast. It was the regular rice and beans, we also had toast and marmalade with cacao beans for the adventurous... :) After that, we got ready for a complete day of science starting at eight thirty. That means a lot of coffee. Today the groups finished up collecting data and made our final presentations. It was kind of bittersweet wrapping up our projects.  At eleven thirty we started our break for lunch. Today was spaghetti and homemade garlic toast so everyone was excited. After that we had a short break before finalizing our presentations. All the groups did a practice run with Dr. Pinto before a coffee break. Along with coffee we had lemony cookies which were great. Then we got back in the classroom and started our presentations. All of them were very interesting and kept our attention the whole time. At the end of each we...

Hola from costa rica! Today was was a very fun day, probably one of the most fun days we've had. We started off with breakfast at 7:30 as usual. Had eggs and rice for the fiftieth time and cinnamon rolls. We had a morning science sesh where we worked more on our experiments with our groups and checked our bacteria and fungus plates that both smell really bad. Finally time for lunch and we had burgers! It was kind of a disappointment when we found out that they were black bean burgers though. After lunch we went on a 40 minute tractor ride and then a 40 minute hike along with that. the hike was fun and in some places we had to use a rope to get up and down. the trail was really muddy and slippery, our boots were filled with water.We ended up at a really cool waterfall and got to swim for a while. Some people climbed the rocks and jumped in *cough cough* Derek and Jack. Then we hiked all the way back and took the tractor home. We were singing old tv show theme songs because there w...

Hola friends and families!             Today was a very busy day for us here at Finca La Anita. For some of us, we started our day bright and early to have breakfast before we left for our horseback tour. We split in two groups so some of us got to sleep in. Those of us who got up early had a nice yoga session before breakfast, hosted by Laura on our porch. For breakfast we had pancakes with dark chocolate pieces, eggs, sausage, fruit, granola, and some delicious strawberry banana juice. As always, it was delicious. The first group departed on our bus at 7:30 AM with our favorite driver, Eddie.             After about a 20 minute drive, we arrived at the horse ranch. After some safety instructions from Pablo, we climbed on to our respective horses. We rode up a hill and into the forest in the pouring rain (Thanks to the tropical storm coming through, but we'll get to that later). As we entered the woods, we heard someth...

Hello again parents and anyone else who's reading! Today marks day 5 of our 10 day journey in the beautiful Costa Rica. Today in our opinion would be the best day so far because it was just so jam packed! We started the day off by waking up at 5:30 to prepare for our hike on Santa Maria. Breakfast this morning was at 6:15, rather than the usual 7:30. After breakfast we rushed into our vans to get our favorite driver, Eddie (he is the best). The drive to Santa Maria was about an hour and ten minutes long. when we arrived, we all doused ourselves in another coat of bug spray and we were on our way. Not even 10 minutes into the hike, our tour guide, Freddy, spots spider monkeys sneaking around in the canopy above. We stood there for a solid 5 minutes observing these adorable creatures. Moments later, a fellow classmate, Grace Ewing, spotted a large stick bug. Freddy, without hesitation, grabs that stick bug and lets it crawl all over him. This is one of the many creatures he gra...

Hi Moms and Dads! (and everyone else) Tonight the daily Blog is being brought to you by Olivia Hach and Justina Dudziak. We are thrilled (and so very very tired) to be able to write the blog tonight! So today started off with a good ole wakeup at 7 AM (8 AM for you folks). Breakfast, as you probably know, is at 7:30, so we all stumbled out of bed and spent the thirty minutes getting ready for the day. We then walked to breakfast and had eggs, rice and beans, a waffle bowl, and awesome pineapple. After breakfast we walked back to the room and hung out there for around an hour. I (Justina) played solitaire for this hour. Olivia took a nap. We then grabbed our sacks of stuff and blundered to the classroom to start the Day of Science. This began with our groups gathering together to plan a trial experiment. This was based around the question "Where is Escovopsis in the ant colony?" The planning for this alone took about an hour. We then carried out the experiment in the lab r...