Mrs. Magna's Class

Hi Mrs. Magna's Class,
I heard that you have been reading my blog. I am very excited to be able to share this experience with all of you. If you have any comments or questions feel free to write them by clicking on the word comment under any picture of paragraph. It doesn't show up right away but I will see it and publish it later. Thanks for visiting! You have an awesome teacher!

Dear Perkins Kids

Today is my last full day on the Earthwatch Team, tomorrow I will be leaving in the morning.
I plan to skype with as many Perkins classes as I can reach. Mrs. Wyatt, Mrs. Vasallo and Mrs. Lovett all have Skype on their computers and it is working. If there are other teachers who have skype, turn on your computers and I will try to drop into your class in the morning between 9-10 and 11-12. I have video conferences with the Bronx and New Jersey between 10-11. Feel free to ask me questions about my experience here. I will try to answer as many as possible.
Science here is amazing and fun!
Hasta Luego!
Mrs. Weller

Estuary Tour

Costa Rica is rich in biodiversity. That is the challenge for today- find out what that word means.
We went for a boat tour of the estuary that runs inland from the end of Playa La Grande.
This estuary has brackish water. There is rich life back in this quiet inlet that is shrouded on each side by mangrove trees. Being from Florida I see many plants and birds that I see in my home town. There are blue herons, sandpipers and a tiger long neck heron, a hawk, mangroves, crocus plants, and much more. It was beautiful almost mystical because of the quiet back there. We stopped at one section of land and got off the boat. We hiked about 1 block back from the water and found a colony of howler monkeys. High in the trees they were swinging and watching us too. Our guide grew up in this area and walked through this estuary often with his mother. He had been practicing his howler monkey call for years. It was amazing and it sounds really authentic. I know you would have loved it! On our way out of the estuary we saw a crocodile! Amazing biodiversity in Costa Rica.

On our way out of the estuary we saw

Mrs. Mooneys Class

I hear that Mrs. Mooney's class really loves Sea turtles. They have been learning about the Leatherbacks all week. They have been asking questions and writing about Sea turtles. I love all the questions and comments. Cassidy sent up some cute names for the turtles. I think when I get home we will have to have a turtle naming contest.
I also heard that the children in Mrs. Mooney's class are very good listeners. I hope to talk with you tomorrow morning on SKYPE. Think of some good questions and I will try to answer.

Morning Walk

Morning Walk

This morning I was on patrol from 5 am till 8:30 a.m. It was dark when we left the station. I was on patrol with Sara the biologist and her Dad who is visiting from Ft. Wayne Indiana. Our job on this patrol was to see if there were any nests that were missed last night. When the tides change so does the schedule. The night patrol was on from 7-11:30 p.m. so there was no patrol till ours at 5 a.m. It’s important to try to mark every nest. This is part of their data collection.
One thing I have learned about scientists is that they are always observing, looking for tracks, checking for hatchlings making their way to sea, and recording the location of the nest. In this place all those observations are extremely important. When a turtle has laid a nest you see a long row of tracks going up to the top of the beach. Generally if it has finished and returned to the sea you will see a second set going back to the sea. We followed the tracks and marked the nest with sticks. Later in the day I returned with another biologist from Italy and we did a triangulation. That is where we measure where the nest is from different aspects, North of the nearest 100meter marker, the distance from the vegetaion to the nest and the distance from the nest to the high tide line. These will be recorded and saved for later, so they will know where to look for hatchlings in 60 days.

As we were walking we found 3 baby sea turtles going into the sea. It was still dark. We followed the turtle tracks up to the nest they hatched from. On the way up Sara saw a crab hole. She took a look in there and saw a baby hatchling. She dug it out and that is the turtle you see me holding in these pictures. It was an Olive Ridley turtle.

We walked 9.2 km. this morning. Can anyone tell me how many miles that is?

Hi Rm. 102

This is the t-shirt I have to wear whenever I am on turtle duty. No one is allowed to work with the turtles on the beach unless they have this shirt.
Hi Room 102, Thanks for reading my blog. I love your questions. What a smart class of first graders.

Hope, Aaron, Prince and Angel and all the other friends in Room 102 I look forward to hearing more questions when we have our videoconference.

Challenges

1. Click on the picture of the crab. How does the pattern on the crab help to camoflage it?
2. Can you find out what type of butterfly this is? Maybe a google search of Costa Rica butterflies might help.
3. Find out what a riptide is. These are very common at this beach so we don't really swim in the ocean. We can go in up to our knees.

Nature is vivid here

Every thing in nature seems more vivid in this tropical paradise. I have been having alot of fun with the new camera I got for Christmas. All the photos I am posting here are my own, if it is not I will give credit to the photographer.
There are howler monkeys, iguanas, all sorts of crabs, many different types of birds, coati's and spiders. One of these days there is a biologist who loves snakes and she will take us out snake hunting so I hope to get some photos.
Here are some cool pictures I have taken recently. Hope you enjoy them!

The Late Shift

My first night out on the late shift of turtle patrol was amazing. We started at km marker 25 and walked south towards the station. It was a full moon, though the moon was a little lower in the eastern sky. As we walked, I thought I saw a turtle coming out of the ocean. It was. When we see one coming up we keep walking or we might miss another turtle who has already come up and is nesting. As we walked we saw 3 other leatherbacks emerging. We knew it would be a pretty busy night. We walked all the way to the station and then began trekking back. We watched as one of the turtles was body pitting and kept moving. Then we came to the next turtle and she was digging her nest. It is amazing to watch this process. The turtle scoops up a couple of cups of sand in her flipper and throws it out, with the other flipper she packs down the bottom and side of the chamber. She alternates and flips out sand with the other flipper patting down the chamber. The chamber is about 3 feet deep (1 meter) and it also goes in a little about 6 inches or so. After the chamber is built the turtle starts laying her eggs. The biologists and volunteers have work to do. We set out our equipment which includes a scanner to check for microchips, a tape measure, the record book and the red flashlights. One of us will lay down behind the turtle. When she begins to nest we will hold one flipper to the side so that we can see the eggs as they drop. We use a counter and push it each time we see an egg. We are counting because records are kept on every turtle that nests, Then the biologist goes to the left flipper and scans for a microchip, then they go to the right flipper and scan for a microchip. Next we measure the length and width of the carapace, it takes two people one holds down the end of the tape, the other measures. I have done the counting and the measuring. It is an amazing process. This huge creature from the sea in labor right before our eyes. Another miracle of life. I hope you all can experience something like this some day, it is nothing short of spectacular.

Challenges

1. What does the word excavation mean?

2. What are predators? Who are the baby sea turtles predators?

Let's name these babies Challenge

Send me your three favorite names for these cute babies. They were released on the beach late last night along with the other 15 hatchlings we found in our excavation.

Hatched and unhatched

As she excavates she finds lots of eggs that have hatched, some that have not hatched and some other things called sags. These are tiny eggs the size of a jumbo gumball that are not ever going to hatch. All the eggs found in the nest are sorted out and counted and recorded in the book. We found 18 baby hatchlings in this nest that was supposed to be already hatched. So that was a record, at least for Sara our scientist.

Excavating a nest

When the turtle nest hatches the scientists wait two days for it to completely finish hatching. After 2 days the scientist goes into the nest and excavates. She dug carefully very deep, as she was digging she found more baby turtles that were trying to come out.

More baby hatchlings video (click on the arrow)

Nighttime hatchery duty

Tonight I had the early shift in the turtle hatchery. I worked from 6 p.m.-11:30 p.m. I worked with Sarah a graduate student at Purdue University who is working on her degree in wild life conservation and biology. We spent our time in the hatchery chatting about sea turtles for hours. She is a wealth of knowledge. I learned a few things. It is a full moon here in Costa Rica and I asked if the full moon affected the sea turtles in any way. There are several things about it that impact the turtles. The full moon causes the high tide to be even higher than usual and the low tide to be lower than usual. The shift I was on is low tide. The beach seemed twice as big as yesterday because of it. This means that when baby sea turtles hatch they have a lot farther to walk to get to the sea. We were able to release 2 baby turtles tonight that had been excavated from a nest that hatched 2 days ago( I will explain that in a future post) The turtles are sooo cute. The one I released was very strong and won the race between the two to the ocean. It kept going and going, I followed behind it to make sure no ghost crabs hurt it. Every once in a while it would stop. I think it was taking a breather to continue it's journey. It kept focused on its goal, the big ocean! The other thing about the full moon is that it makes the beach very bright. Often the nesting turtles will wait a little later when the moon starts to go down in the sky to nest. We also had 5 baby sea turtles hatch tonight. We weighed them, measured the length of the carapace, the width, and the size of the neck with an instrument called a caliper. All measurements are done in metrics.

It takes the nesting turtle about 90 minutes for the whole process of emerging from the ocean and digging the pit, to laying the eggs and covering it up.
I love the questions. Keep them coming.

Challenge 1: find out what what a carapace and caliper are.
Challenge 2: Find out the name of this bird that is pictured here. I took this photo while I was eating breakfast. There were three of these in the tree right there.
Challenge 3: How many geometric shapes can you count in this picture. I sat in a hammock reading and thought this would be a good picture.

Jan. 23, 2008

Welcome to my blog from Costa Rica. This is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Today the temperature is perfect, a little sun, a little breeze and a clear day. I arrived yesterday late in the afternoon. My Earthwatch expedition begins this afternoon. I met 2 of the other teachers here at Las Tortugas, the hotel I stayed at last night. Mrs. de Lima and Mr. Fox are from Massachusetts.

In the afternoon I walked over to the hatchery and there was a clutch of baby sea turtles emerging from the sand. I can't believe I get to witness this miracle over and over for the next 10 days!
For all you surfing dudes, this is really the place to catch a wave! The surfers here say it is one of the best places to surf in the world. The Fodor's guide book says don't try surfing here unless you are very experienced.
I watched my first Pacific sunset last night and it was nothing short of spectacular. The sky was an organge glow. It was very peaceful. After sunset no one is allowed to roam the beach freely and it is patrolled by security to protect the nesting leatherback sea turtles. Tonight along with the team we will get to walk the beach with Earthwatch biologists and witness our first nesting of a leatherback.
One question I wondered about was if it would be a full moon in Costa Rica. When I left Florida it was a full moon. Last night the moon here was full and it cast a natural light on the beach welcoming in the leatherbacks to lay nests.

Hope you like the photos, I will blog each day. Be sure to comment and send questions. Greetings to Classroom 102 and Perkins elementary.

Hablamos Depues

Mrs. Weller

January 16, 2008

Next Tuesday Jan. 22nd I will be leaving for Costa Rica on an Earthwatch Expedition. The team and I will be working with researchers and scientists who are helping to protect the critically endangered leatherback sea turtles.

The leatherback is the largest, deepest diving, and most migratory and wide ranging of all sea turtles. The adult leatherback can reach 4 to 8 feet in length and 500 to 2000 pounds in weight.
The crash of the Pacific leatherback population, once the world’s largest population, is believed primarily to be the result of poaching by humans of eggs and meat and being caught in commercial fishing in the nets and drowning. Other factors threatening leatherbacks globally include loss or of nesting habitat from coastal development; confusion for baby sea turtles because of condo lighting, ocean pollution and being hit by boats.

Sweetie

Hershey

Megan and Chris

Katie

JJ Brian and I