On their first day in Costa Rica, the guide asked Leslie Bridgett's students what they wanted to see. "Everything. We kept adding to the list - alligators, monkeys, iguanas, toucans, sloths...and the next day he'd point them out. The kids were beside themselves." For 14 high school sophomores and juniors from West Lake High School in Waldorf, MD, each day they spent exploring the Central American rainforest was an adventure, from a rafting trip down the Sarapiqui River to a visit inside one of the palm huts inhabited by members of the BriBri Indian tribe.
In addition to teaching biology for 21 years, Bridgett has traveled extensively and is an avid scuba diver. "I told the kids that it's taken me a lifetime to accumulate these experiences and become what I've become, and now they get to do most of it in ten days." None of them had been to a rainforest before, and according to Bridgett, seeing things first-hand "increased their awareness ten-fold. Here they just see it in a book, but when they go there and see it for themselves...they internalize it."
Bridgett's group made their base in the Selva Verde Lodge, located in a lush rainforest in northeastern Costa Rica. At Selva Verde, students slept amid the sounds and smells of the forest and were awakened each morning by the calls of howler monkeys. During their days, they hiked through the rainforest, rafted the Sarapiqui, toured banana and coffee plantations, explored a wildlife refuge on the Atlantic coast, and visited local schoolchildren as well as the native Bribri, who live near the Panamanian border. Students were encouraged to keep journals, and each evening they gathered to discuss their impressions of the day.
For Amy Crittenden, a junior who had never before left the U.S., the trip was the experience of a lifetime. But she's determined that it will not be the last such experience. Crittenden, who has always wanted to be a game warden, returned from Costa Rica with increased resolve and "the sense of direction that I could leave the country...now I want to travel to other places to see for myself, and to find my job." She's helping to organize a group trip to India for 1999; next comes Africa.
Besides building her determination to see more of the world first-hand, the trip changed Amy's ideas about the rainforest and its inhabitants. "I thought that nature would come to you, but animals don't just walk up and shake hands - you have to be patient." The visit to the Bribri "touched me. I didn't expect anything like that. We walked through all this mud to a one-story house made of palm where a large family lived...at first it seemed sad, I thought these people were really poor. Afterwards I respected it, though; they make their own weapons, hunt their own food, and have so much land and vegetation. They weren't poor like in the U.S. They seemed happy with their lives."
To Paul Spencer, another student of Bridgett's, the Bribri lifestyle was a reminder that in his modern home "you can't take anything for granted". Like Crittenden, Spencer has long been fascinated by nature, but had never been out of the U.S., except for a shopping trip to Tijuana. Spencer liked the adventure - of white water rafting in Class 3 rapids, of crocodiles, monkeys, and especially the huge insects, including a jumping spider "the size of a plate" that he discovered dangling over his head during a night hike. Of the rainforest, he says, "what a shame it would be if it disappeared. Here in Maryland we've got a few species of trees, squirrels - but there, we'd lose so much diversity if we lost even a square mile."
Part II. Idaho students want to go, if only it weren't for the...
Crittenden and Spencer were fortunate to have jobs that paid for part of the trip's cost, and parents (and grandparents) who could make up the difference. Most of Larry Barnes' students are not so lucky.
Barnes has been to the rainforests of Central America and around the world, working as a field researcher in some of the most beautiful and remote places on earth before settling down to teach high school science in the high desert town of Hailey, Idaho. The next time Barnes goes south he wants to take a group of students from Hailey's Wood River High School with him. He's planning a trip to Belize, with an itinerary similar to that of Bridgett's. Sixteen students want to go, but only three kids from the working-class town have the $1700 land and air fee, and more are needed to form the minimum traveling group.
Hailey lies in a valley just 15 miles south of the popular Sun Valley ski resort. Bruce Willis, Clint Eastwood, and Arnold Schwarzenegger number among those who've found the area attractive enough to make homes there. The residents of Hailey divide its denizens into "locals" and "trust-funders"; the former are distinguished by the fact that they work for a living, often two or more jobs, frequently in the tourist trade. The students at Wood River are mostly locals like Joanna Hedin, whose mom works in the police department and supplements her income at the ski lifts in winter and on bike patrol in summer.
Last summer, Hedin clinched a job as a groundskeeper at the local golf club, where she built up her biceps while working as the only woman on the crew. Hedin's working any job she can get - presently cleaning condos at Sun Valley - to scrape together the money to go to Belize. But she's nowhere near meeting the entire cost of the trip, and she's nearly resigned herself to pulling out. Her teacher, Larry Barnes, is not optimistic about opportunities for raising money from local sources. "We live in an area where there is no shortage of people asking for money. There are lots and lots of nonprofits, and people trying to figure out ways to extract money from the wealthy people here."
Part III. Advice on trip planning and funding
Sandy Doss, a educational consultant for Holbrook Travel Inc. who specializes in environmental field based studies, offers advice on building and funding travel groups. It's essential, she says, to plant the seed early and with enthusiasm. "Provide students, colleagues, and parents with detailed information about the program. Your enthusiasm will be contagious and the information you share convinces others of your seriousness about making the trip a reality." The next step is to plan a meeting for all interested parties. The meeting should be well advertised in school newspapers and over the PA. If only a few students from the school seem interested, then she suggests inviting students from other schools and posting announcements in community establishments such as libraries and churches. Approximately 10-15 travelers are needed to comprise a group.
For funding, Doss recommends starting with community foundations and local service and professional organizations, such as the Rotary and Lions Clubs. Corporations, including Wal-mart, Target, and other chains, have programs that may provide matching funds to local school groups. Different funding opportunities may exist at the state level, via the public school system, or the national level.
Doss is adamant that "under no circumstances should funding ever be the determining factor of whether students are given the opportunity to learn abroad...if there's a will, there's a way." She stresses the importance of starting early. "While we've had groups acquire full funding in less than three months, it's important to look for funding early, as the group is making its plans, even before the start of the school year." Given the time constraints of high school teachers, it would be useful to engage an adult volunteer to assist with the grant application process. Doss recommends the following internet sites as starting points in the search for funding:
The Foundation Center
http://fdncenter.org/
U.S. Department of Education Grants and Contracts
http://gcs.ed.gov/
For information on foundation funding in your community:
The Council on Foundations, 888 Seventh Avenue
New York, NY 10019
For information on student or teacher educational travel:
Sandy Doss, Holbrook Educational Travel
(888) 890-0632; sdoss@swbell.net
Other resources for science education funding:
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
(to enhance science education at all levels within the US)
http://www.hhmi.org/grants/start.htm
The National Science Foundation
(for informal science education for people of all ages)
http://www.nsf.gov/home/grants.htm
Foundation insiders suggest finding out who the appropriate grant manager is at a given foundation and contacting him or her directly. Occasionally foundations have money left over at the end of a period, and they may be willing to fund projects on an informal basis, and more quickly than usual.
Part IV. Conclusion, or Hope runs high in Hailey
With lots more money to raise and the deadline approaching rapidly, Joanna Hedin and her friends are nearly resigned to spending this summer in the U.S. But rather than give in to disappointment, they're already turning their sights to next year. With a bit more preparation, they'll stand a better chance of raising enough money to make it all the way to Belize.
Larry Barnes is determined to take his students to the rainforest, if not this year then the next. "What motivates me [in teaching] is the desire to share the natural world with students. We can all recall times when adults took us out, sometimes they even influenced the course of our lives. They are at a critical time." And when they're ready and able to make the trip, he'll be there to lead them.
Carol Berkower, Ph.D.
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
1300 Morris Park Avenue
Bronx, NY 10461
Phone (718) 430-2886 Fax (718) 518-0366
Email: cberkower@towson.edu
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