Oh what a day! AND Oh what a night!

I can now say that I have traveled from the floor of a rain forest up to its canopy (the top). The plants, the birds, the scenary were all simply fantastic! Never in my wildest dreams did I think that my last day on this fantasy of a trip could actually continue to sweep me off my feet.

Our last night was even more amazing - we ate at the St. Augustine convent (where the Quito constitution was signed) with fireworks for the Quito Independence from Spain celebration, and we wound our way back to the hotel on a chiva - an open bus with a band playing on top. What a night! What a trip of a lifetime! What an experience to treasure for the rest of my life! What a sensational group of teachers who will always be family to me!!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

On Wednesday, December 3rd, we visited Fabricio Valverde Recyling Center, and Ulf Hardtner (from Germany) gave our a tour/lecture of the recyling facility and the challenges of recyling on the Galapagos Islands. Ulf works for the Municipal Government of Santa Cruz. There is an educational awareness building with posters explaining historical and present environmental and health problems associated with waste disposal. He reinterated what we already learned about the removal of waste from the Galapagos Islands: all recyclable material is broken down/compacted and privately-owned ships bring the waste to the main land (Ecuador). Currently the Galapagos Islands are losing money recycling their waste, even though there has been a huge increase in land preservation. This leads to the problem - money talks! Therefore it takes some smooth talking to get the local government officials to keep the recycling program going. There was even a problem with the collectors not picking up the recycling bins. The majority of the people of Santa Cruz thought seperating their waste was time-consuming and basically a pain to do. People who were recycing were complaining that their waste was stinking, and after weeks of the waste randomly being picked up, they began to not sort their trash or they would burn it. Remember this: There is always someone smarter or more clever. The collector said they didn't have any recycling waste to pick up; so Ulf placed GPS devices on the trucks and told the drivers that it was a streat sweeping devise. Over a two month period, he tracked the drivers found out that they were not completing their routes, refusing to pick up the bins as they were told.

Workers continue to separate the trash, as it travels down a conveyor belt, into blue plastic bags. The center shreds the plastic into pellets and grinds the glass into granules. The plastic pellets are sold to China, and the glass is mixed with cement and used to make pavers, or bricks, which are then used for roads in town.

Charles Darwin Research Center

Today, we visited the Charles Darwin Research Center, where we received a lecture by Felipe Cruz, the "hero of the Galapagos." There Felipe Cruz discussed some of the intursive flora and fauna problems as well as problems with tourism and human living capacity on the Galapagos Islands. Did you know that Charles Darwin didn´t even mention the Galapagos Islands until late in his research? He asked colleagues for evidence to support his paper "The Origin of Species" and they reminded him of the plants and animal variation in the Galapagos. However, since then people just hear of one and think of the other; Señior Cruz state that this wasn´t a bad thing, but is misleading to the actual history.

The Charles Darwin Research Center is just for that - research that gets translated into information for decision makers, and the information is applied for action plans. It also hosts tortoise breeding in captivity, which has restored many numbers to the tortoise population. It is also home to Lonesome George, which is thought to be the last Pinta Tortoise in the world.

In terms of the large population influx to the Galapagos, many surveys were presented to all people living in the islands over the past few years. Some questions and resulting answer percentages are as follows:
Are the institutions fulfilling their job rolls - No, 20-25%
Do Western influences increase crime - Yes, 70%
Does immigration increase unemployment - Yes, 80%
Would you bring your family to the Islands - Yes, 40%
Should there be bans on imports - Yes, 80%
Should there be a restriction on the number of visitors to the Galapagos - No, 76%

It was very interesting to hear the conflicting information about involving the outside world with the Galapagos. Some of the problem is education; only 50% of students graduate high school and go to a university. As a result the locals do not learn skills needed to maintain a modern society (teachers, doctors, nurses, engineers - the list goes on and on). In fact, because the Galapagos is a provence of Ecuador, the students learn about Ecuador, not the Galapagos. There is a movement for an education reform (mentioned in a previous post), but there is a political battle. Señior Cruz said the Galapagos is the Mona Lisa of the natural world, and he is confident stating as long as there is an interest in the Galapagos, the islands will continue, which seemed to have multiple meanings.

Señior Cruz then told us about his Project Isabella and the Judas Goats. This was so cool! The problem with goats (pigs and donkeys, too) is that they eat all of the grassa nd turn the tropical landscape of Isabella Island into a desert, thus the tortoises die without food to eat and water to drink. So, Señior Cruz requested1/2 million pounds of ammunition for the US to rid the island of the goats. After 2 years of verifying that he was a scientist and not a drug dealer, project Isabella was a go. Many people were trained to shoot rifles and how to hunt goats. Hunting dogs were given boots to wear so that the lava rocks didn´t tear up their foot pads (in fact the dog boots had to be changed every 2-3 days!). Some goats were caught, sterilzed, and tagged with GPS devises that would lead the hunters to the packs; they were name Judas goats from the desciple who betrayed Jesus Christ in the New Testament of the Bible. After 1 day of hunting 7,000 goats were killed. All in all, a total of 150,000 goats were removed from the island. The dead goats were left where they fell for nature to take its "revenge." A total of 1.4 bullets per goat were used - that´s some accurate shooting!

A question was asked to Señior Cruz: Will there be a time when all invasive species are removed from the Galapagos? Since the answer would also include humans, the answer is no. There is no romantic idea of a pristine paradise, but it is improving and can continue to do so.

Traveling by boat along Isabella Island

These are some pictures I took this afternoon.

From top to bottom, you see a rock strata sliding into the water; volcano that has lost a side into the ocean; Galapagos penguin, Blue-footed boobie; lava cooled vertically in the rock called a dike.

Fernandina Island

WOW! And I thought this trip couldn't get any better! Boy I keep awing at every thing every moment I step further and further into the Galapagos fantasy land.

LAVA! Finally, I get to see some lava flows -both  pahoehoe (pa-hoy-hoy) and aa (ah-ah) examples. This picture is in front of pahoehoe lava which is usally smooth and ropy. Click here (http://picasaweb.google.com/buckaress/GalapagosShipCruise#) for more pictures of the ancient lava flows on Fernandina Island.

Trooper is pictured with lava cacti growing in the lava rock (basaltic). Can I just say, again, how cool it was to march around the ancient lava flows?!!!

We also saw marine iguanas fighting for territory. They have large spikes on the top of their heads and necks. When they marine iguanas want to challenge one another, the lock their spikes together and push one another, which is not unlike bucks locking their antlers together.

We had another rare experience with the flightless cormorant. Three birds, two male and one female, were near each other and one male dominated the other, and the female chose her mate. Then we saw their courtship dance (mating dance, though they didn't mate) in the water. Peter, our photographer, said this rarely happens near shore that it mostly happens out in deep water. We saw the seaweed offering and acceptance and their "dance" - it was absolutely breath-taking! Check out the video below.

Galapagos Ship Cruise Day 1

Today we left on the M/V Santa Cruz; I was very nervous because I have not typically done well on boats. However, I have done well despite my body constantly shifting in my seat. The ship is rather large, its passenger capacity is 90, and Toyota teachers make up about 45 (including 9 Galapagonan teachers and admin).

We went around the island of San Cristobal today and went snorkeling near the Witch's Mound (named for the shape of the hill, but it doesn't look anything like a witch's hat - it's really like a large hill).

We swam with sting rays, sea ions, an abundant amount of fish such as clown fish, parrot fish, and puffer fish. Marine iguanas could also easily be found warming on the black volcanic rock.

Tonight we broke out into small groups with a Galapagonan teacher to develop an environmental awareness lesson/activity/lab. My group includes Karen Cruse of Ohio, Thomas Flanagan of Illinois, Kathleen Ireland of Hawaii, and Vilma Camacho Cherres of San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands. Thomas translated between the States teachers and Vilma (obviously my Spanish is lacking a bit). After just a few minutes, we were able to harrow down our students' needs to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Like I said, we just started, but we have already created an international, collaborative, inquiry lab addressing the 3 R's. OH! My team rocks! Look out NSTA, because this turning into a proposal for next year's national conference!

Floreana Island

This morning, I awoke at 6:00 am to eat breakfast and head out to Puta Suarez of Espanola Island of the archipelago. we rode a dingy from our ship to the boat. As soon as we landed we had to take an alternate route off the trail (which is a no, no so that we do not alter the environment as much as possible); a sea lion couple and a cub blocked our way.

The wild was immediately accessible as we saw more sea lions, albatross, blow hole, nazca boobies (formerly known as the masked boobies). I was even fortunate to see an adult pair of albatross performing a mating dance. It was absolutely amazing watching them bowing and clacking their beaks together! Basalt rock (an extrusive igneous rock, black in color, and has tiny crystals) covered the island. Several places you could easily see where the lava once flowed.

Floreana Island was a whole other experience! I went deep sea snorkeling about 1/2 mile from the shore at Devi's Crown; a collection of igneous rocks jutting out of the water. We saw HUGE sting rays (about 4-5 ft wing span), eagle rays (have dots on the skin), and white-tip reef sharks! Yes! I swam with sharks, however they were only about 4 ft long, but STILL! One of my favorite observations were the igneous rocks under the water. I could easily imagine the lava rolling off of the sea mount underwater 

and cooling as it falls and breaks toward the ocean floor! AHHH! to back in time to actually see it happen!

When we were on the island, we saw a flock of flamingos flying to a lake. Peter, our photographer, told us that it is very rare to see a flock of flamingos in the air, and normally they flew solo. We then hiked to a beach where we saw a sea turtle making its way to shore. The turtle made it all the way out of the water when it stopped and turned around because about 20 of us were waiting for it anxiously. We then stepped into the water because we saw sting rays.  Peter, our photographer, told us to enter the water at our own risks, because sting rays can insert the tip of their tail into your skin and send you to the hospital! He told us to shuffle our feet, never picking them up from the sand, as long as we could see our feet; as soon as we could no longer see our feet we were to stand still. Cautiously we scooted out to see the sting rays, keeping our feet flat against the sand. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, and then we saw them just feet from us. They glided toward us and actually landed on Pat, a teacher from Wisconsin, several times. Pat's face was a mix of OMG! and COOL! He said they felt like a rubber mat on his foot. Peri, a teacher from Texas, too had close encounters with sting rays. After a while, we began to scoot backwards, still keeping our feet flat against the sand. Peter told us that sting rays can float around in water with only a depth of 4 inches!