First Class!

So we had our first class about Costa Rica tonight. We had the opportunity to meet all educators that we'll be traveling with, which was great. Some very fun faces from our Thailand trip and some new faces, too! There are about 20 of us going on this adventure.

Dr. Scott Shumway from Wheaton College was our speaker.  He told us:

• Our bags will be tied to the top of our bus
• Costa Rica is the size of NH and VT combined
• A mountain range runs through it
• February is a low rainfall month (yay!)
• 25% of the country is protected parks or reserves
• We'll be spending a lot of time in the rainforest
• There are 2000 species of plants in the rainforest
• In a day's time I'll see about 100 new species of birds
• We have 1 species of hummingbirds in New England
• There are 23 species of hummingbirds in Costa Rica

We saw pictures of Kapok trees. I always read The Great Kapok Tree, by Lynne Cherry to my second graders as we studied the rainforest. I'm going to start reading this to classes at DWS, so all hear it before I go on this trip!  Travel date: February 12, 2015. I can't wait!