Day 7 - Stressful Science

 We started the morning off with breakfast, as usual. We had another full day of science to wrap up our final projects. The morning was very slow. Me and my group were a little confused about our project and were trying to get back on track. We chose to sit outside and work because it was a hot day and the breeze felt wonderful. While we were hard at work, we saw a coati. Then we went to lunch and had a heart of palm casserole with grilled chicken and plantain chips. After lunch, we came back to the lab. This is where things got stressful. It turned out that we had to take more trials in the field to better support our research and there was a lot of running back-in-forth, for me especially. Around 3:40 we got a coffee and chocolate break. It was hot chocolate that didn't help me cool off, but it was so good. After our break, we went back out into the field to finish our trials. We got a lot done and were feeling a lot less stressed than before. After, we went to dinner and had some delicious tacos and a really tasty dessert. It was a frozen banana, pudding like dessert with chocolate, caramel, and nuts. After dinner, we came back to conclude our project and finalize our PowerPoints. Soon we are heading back after a long and stressful day of awesome science. I am ready to take a nice cold shower and go to bed!

Evie Palazzo

Today, we got ready before breakfast, and I think that my body is finally starting to adjust to Costa Rica time! We had rice and beans, eggs, and fruit for breakfast again, and it the consistency of the breakfast is amazing. The food is so delicious, I can't imagine getting sick of it. 

Today, we had a full day of science, which I really enjoyed. My group's project is testing ant pheromones as a possible repellent to be applied to crops, as they are a pest. Today, we completed our final field test in the morning and collected leaves for our lab trials. We tested in the lab after lunch, but only after a power outage! When we got back from lunch to do the lab trials, we discovered this occurrence and were disappointed in our project being delayed. But, we reviewed what we knew and worked on our recurring experiment on ant fungus gardens that we did to learn about statistical analysis and the scientific method before beginning our group's experiments. 

After the power came back on, we finished our lab trials. After the trials, we changed our qualitative data (description) to quantitative data (numbers) with a scale, a new technique we learned from Allan, a grad student. Then Dr. Pinto helped us run statistical analysis and convert our data into a more understandable chart. The statistics part, a math no one in our group was very familiar with, was very stressful as we were watching the clock tick down for the time we had left, yet we persevered and finished just in the nick of time! We got to stay at the lab until 10:15 to finish our experiments for the day and prepare for our presentations tomorrow. Tomorrow, we'll finalize our presentations, practice and present them, "graduate", and celebrate! I can't wait to share what we found with the other groups and learn from the other groups. 

Elise Crump