Aaand we're off...

En route to Charlotte, North Carolina.  

.  We arrived at the airport at 4:00 so everyone is snoozing on the plane.  Ran into an 11th grade student and his family too!

On our way!

Tico!

I am Ms. Thibault's traveling companion, Tico.  

I will be hanging out on her backpack and sharing in the adventures!

Maybe I'll see some of my cousins here...

Snow!

As you know, we will be visiting a few schools while we are in Costa Rica.   My gratitude to those of you who have donated supplies!   The kids will be so happy!  

This is what a school in Costa Rica looks like:

We are also going to get to teach a short lesson to the kids there. The challenge will be that they don't speak English!  And I don't speak Spanish!  That is going to be fun!  I am super excited about this opportunity. 

I am going to do a lesson on snow.    ⛄️   Could you imagine what you would think if you were a Costa Rican child who had never seen snow or experienced cold and you came here for the first time to see all the snow we are having?!  What would you think?!  How could you get someone to begin to understand what it's really like if they have never experienced it? 

I'll let you know how it goes!  ❄️

Biodiversity!

Did you know that Costa Rica has a richer degree of biodiversity than Europe and the USA, put together?!   Do you know what biodiversity means?   We will be talking about biodiversity in my 8th grade classes after break to frame our study of Kingdom Animalia.  

Here are some of the megafauna we may see....

  

So many awesome animals!

Sloths!!

Baby sloth!

White bats. These an be found huddled up together underneath a curled up banana leaf. 

 

(He's a beauty but I am not sure I want to see him up close and personal. )

Here are some of the tinier animals we may see:

This little one is a new species of dwarf salamander discovered in 2009.

Ahh.  The iconic Blue Morpho butterfly.  Do you know why the wings are blue?  

A Flat Footed Bug.  This dude is related to stink bugs which are common in our area.  Notice the X on his back. 

Beautiful!!

Cicada!!!!   I love cicadas!  Remind me to tell you why when we get back to school...

Did I say tiny?  

Buttresses!

Mr. Anderson's 7th graders are studying buttresses in gothic architecture like the flying buttresses pictured below: 

Or non-flying buttresses like these:

What's the purpose of a buttress?  Right!  To provide a lateral force to support a building...or a tree!  Did you know there are natural buttresses on many trees in Costa Rica?  Take a look...

Why do you think huge trees need crazy buttresses like these?  The answer is that in the tropics, the soil is super thin.   In biomes like the one we live in (who remembers the name of this biome?), the soil is pretty deep so tree roots can also extend way way down into the soil to keep a tree standing up in all kinds of windy weather.  Because  it's so warm and wet all the time in rainforest biomes, dead things rot really quickly and the nutrients get used up really quickly. The result is that not a lot of those nutrients end up hanging out in the soil for very long so the soil is very thin.  Buttresses support humongous trees like kapoks and figs and help them to remain standing even in very windy weather. Think of the hurricanes that pass through these areas from time to time!   Buttresses also trap dead leaves and keep them near the base of the tree so when they decompose, the nutrients are right there where they can be used by the tree. 

Only a month away!

 

Hola and Welcome to Mrs. Thibault's Blog!

Over February vacation, I will have the unique opportunity to travel to Costa Rica with my fabulous fellow educators on a professional development tour.  We will explore the rich natural beauty of many ecosystems and get to visit local schools!  I can't wait to share our adventures with you!