After a fun and relaxing week of reading, it was time to put on our bathing suits and water shoes and venture into the unknown realm of Stream Ecology! To help teach this course, Dr. Mike Guebert joined the CCSP community from Taylor University and brought with him a wealth of knowledge of geology, hydrology and stream monitoring.
The week included two big field days, the “Mountain Pine Ridge Hayday” and the “Hummingbird Highway Extravaganza”, all with the purpose of comparing and contrasting streams in two very different geological settings - granite and limestone bedrock. At each stream site, the students assessed the stream, collected macroinvertebrates, and tested water quality in preparation for their presentations.
During the week, new and exciting things were discovered, like the kick seine twist, the monstrous Megaloptera, tufa dams, and a lot of the students’ favorite little macroinverebrate, the caddisfly with its home made of sand grains, twigs, or leaves stuck or twisted together!! Many tropical caddisfly larvae have not yet been associated with their adult forms and thus still taxonomic mysteries which makes investigating them this week all the more exciting!
On Thursday, we also were able to visit Five Blues National park where we hiked back to the duende caves. As the students made their way through the different passages and tunnels, they found cave crickets, crystal formations, and what Mike taught us about the night before, cave bacon!
The week ended with the students presenting on the differences they found between the streams they found in the Mountain Pine Ridge area versus the streams they monitored on the Hummingbird Highway. Overall, the week was full of fun and excitement and oh, of course, learning!
The grand finale of the week was a trip to TIKAL. We loaded up the van on Saturday morning and headed over the border into Guatemala to visit the ancient Mayan ruin of Tikal. Not only did we see ruins, but we saw monkeys, agoutis, toucans, aracaris and Jenna finally saw her Blue-crowned Mot Mot! The day ended with a nice relaxing dinner in the island city of Flores, Guatemala overlooking the lake and scheming up plans for FALL BREAK!
The students are all back, safe and sound from their fall breaks full of stories! Now, it's time to get back to studying and learning!
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