2017 Trinity High School Costa Rica Science Research Trip

Students from Trinity High School and Lexington Catholic High School spent the afternoon on an important service project for the village of Colonia Libertad. Recent grants have allowed the community to purchase raw materials needed to renovate the school and build a wall around the property. Students helped by moving the cinder blocks from across the street to the construction site, saving the local workers time and energy to get the job done. Over the course of the summer, students from Seeds of Change continue to make a positive impact on the village. Way to go Rocks! Will, Lauren, John, and Alexander help carry blocks. La Escuela Loading and unloading takes lots of muscle.

Calling all parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and all friends of Trinity High School. Next Thursday, June 8th, at 7pm in Convocation Hall will be night to remember. After a brief intro and explanation of the trip, students will present their three research projects. We will be serving Costa Rican coffee, cacao nibs, and rain forest chocolate (made at the farm). Come celebrate your student's achievements. Research Projects Include: The Organic Force Field, Stopping Ants from Getting Cacao Leaves, and Queen Heist. 

This morning we are meeting with our groups for our final day of experimentation. After several days in both the field and the lab, we have completed our trials and are analyzing our collected data. Today, each group is creating a formal scientific PowerPoint presentation. After lunch, each group will present their findings to the community, including several local farmers. My group, Los Tigres Nobles, conducted experiment concerning the use of suitable versus unsuitable leaves by leaf cutter ants. Our goal was to provide a form of natural deterrent that farmers might use to protect their crops. We have all learned so much from this immersion experience. I can't wait to see how the other experiments turned out! Atta Leaf cutter ants -Noah Tuell

Today we woke up and ate something new for breakfast, we had eggs and rice of course but they through some new flavors in the mix by serving pancakes and sausage. After breakfast we moved on to the science aspect of the trip where we worked on our experiments for one of the last times because we have to have them in before lunch tomorrow. After lunch we had a couple hours of free time where me and some of the other students went up to the local pulperia, which is a small store (the only store in this town). After our free time was up we went into the village to help out the town by carrying all the cinder blocks that they were using to build a fence for the school to a more accessible place withing the school walls. After doing an hour and a half of service Pablo one of the owners of the farm bought all of us sodas at the pulperia. Then we did something very fun but different for dinner we went to a women house in the town that has taken out a microloan to build amazing outdoor cooking...

Jack Ryan Smith, a rising junior at Trinity High School, discusses his favorite part of the trip so far. Besides the science, of course, Jack Ryan loved the horseback riding up the side of Santa Maria Volcano and swimming in a rain forest waterfall. Pura Vida!

Day 5: Wednesday May 31st, 2017      It was around 6:30 in the morning when I arose from a deep slumber to the sounds of birds singing and crickets humming in the forest behind me. It was time for another adventurous day in the Costa Rican rain forest! I then packed my day bag and set off to meet my fellow Los Tigres nobles teammates in the lab to run our positive control trials. After setting up our trial and recording the data from last night's negative control trial I headed down to feast on another exquisite Finca la Anita meal that was ripe with fresh ingredients. Soon after breakfast and some loll banter on the subject of basketball and soccer with Mac and Alexander, it was time to pack into the travel bus with the worlds best tour driver, Eddie! It was then that we took a pleasant drive on the rugged dirt roads to a location where we would continue our travels via horseback ride! Pablo then showed those of us with a lack of experience the proper methods in which ...

Will Mullen, rising junior at Trinity High School, discusses his research project. They made a very unique discovery today when their Atta queen was brought back to the fungus garden by the worker ants. This is one of several trials that will be statistically analyzed using Vassarstats online program.

Students are spending the afternoon working on their research and experimentation. Some groups discovered that science is not easy... while others were excited to see their hypotheses confirmed. All the groups are learning that two important values: 1) collaborating with group members to make decisions can be a challenge and 2) designing experiments which yield valid data is hard.  Way to go LC and Trinity... the groups are doing great. - Mr. Heintz Group members prepare for data collection using ant aggression scale. John keeping it real... and the containers clean to prevent colony contamination. Jack Ryan extracting his queen for isolation. Observations: with the queen removed from the colony, the other ants show signs of aggression. Group members put their positive control to test. With a few adjustments, it works well. The physical barrier does a great job preventing the ants from going down the path. 2min and 35secs later, the ants found a wa...

Today we took advantage of the first real break from rain and rode up the side of Santa Maria Volcano to get the best view in northwest Costa Rica. After a great ride (and a lot of bonding with our horses), we took a nice walk through the rain forest to a beautiful waterfall. Students had a quick dip before we headed home for a lunch or veggie rice and sea bass. Even though they look a little tired, students are ready for an afternoon and full evening of research and experimentation. - Mr. Heintz Riding up the mountain. Santa Maria Volcano Lodge Will and Brendan learning to ride. Rookie Vaqueros Top of a long ride. We love our horses. Noah... professional rider. Lauren with the prettiest horse in Costa Rica. Getting ready to take the plunge. Sam... modeling his swimsuit and Power T hat. John taking flight. Will going for the biggest splash. After a long morning horseback riding and a hike to the waterfall, students are looki...

Day four of our Costa Rica science expedition! The day started early for me with a wake up time of 5:15. The time between waking up and breakfast was spent swinging on the porch swing and exploring the grounds.  After breakfast, at 7:30, we got to go zip lining instead of a morning learning session. The zip line course had ten zip lines that went through the forest canopy. The course offered zip lines of varying speeds and lengths, on the slowest of which we were able to go upside down. Once finished with the zip lines, we headed back to Finca La Anita for lunch and to work on our group projects. In the afternoon my group, K-JAB, prepared different organic liquids with which we plan to interrupt the ant's pheromone trail the most. Our experiment is to see which liquid interrupts their pheromone trail the most. Some of the organic solutions we are using include panama peppers, vinegar, vegetable oil, and cintronella to do this. Tomorrow we will to put these solutions to th...