Un Dia Mas! Today was laundry day, which also marked our last day in Monteverde. The mountains have been so amazing and beautiful, but we're hoping for some fun in the sun in Uvita for the next few days.
After a hearty breakfast this morning, we took a short hike up to the organic farm located on UGA’s campus. The farm contained many rows of organic crops, such as carrots, cabbage, corn, and sugar cane. The layout of this farm was designed to be a model for local families to base their farms off of. This is because UGA is able to experiment with different farming techniques in order to give the local community farms ideas on how to keep up with their sustainable farms.
After a hearty breakfast this morning, we took a short hike up to the organic farm located on UGA’s campus. The farm contained many rows of organic crops, such as carrots, cabbage, corn, and sugar cane. The layout of this farm was designed to be a model for local families to base their farms off of. This is because UGA is able to experiment with different farming techniques in order to give the local community farms ideas on how to keep up with their sustainable farms.
While touring the farm, we got to see how the campus composts its waste. 80% of the waste made from the kitchen on campus is organic. This organic waste is mixed with a diversity of microorganisms, leaves, creek minerals, and the farm’s chicken waste in order to create compost. It was really fascinating to tie together all of the information we had learned during our time here on campus and be able to see yet anther way how UGA is remaining environmentally sustainable.
After our farm tour, we transitioned into class mode. Studying abroad is all about balancing work with play and since the past couple of days have been full of play, it was time for some work. Today we listened to a lot of really interesting student presentations. We started off with listening to Natalie talk about HIV, SARS, and MERS. We learned about the history of each infectious disease, how they're being controlled, and what still needs to be done. Lori presented on agricultural waste management. She explained how important it is to properly manage waste in order to reduce environmental pollution and health risks to humans. Biodigestors, composting, and effective microorganisms are all different ways that UGACR is effectively managing waste here. The last presentation was by Taylor, talking about ecotourism. She talked about how Costa Rica thrives off of ecotourism and what's being done to keep this going and how Eco-tainment has gotten in the way. We've experienced a lot of ecotourism during our time here, so it was an interesting class discussion about how we’ve contributed to it.
After the student presentations, Dr. Black lectured on water quality as an introduction to our water sampling experiment. We went to a river and a frog pond to test the differences in their water qualities. We tested for dissolved oxygen, pH, nitrogen, phosphates, alkalinity, turbidity, and temperature. We got our feet wet and some sun during this enjoyable scientific experiment.
We just finished dinner and the plan is to spend our last night practicing our merengue skills we learned last night. Buenas noches and hasta luego, Monteverde! Tomorrow we head to Uvtia!
Pura Vida!
~Samantha
Pura Vida!
~Samantha