Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Monday the 6th

Today's breakfast was eggs, rice and beans, yogurt with granola, pineapple, and watermelon, and toast with marmalade. After that we began science once again at 8:30, and spent the morning in the field looking at colonies. We loaded up a tractor to take us to the first colony, one that was abandoned and is beginning to be overgrown. We then continued on to the mature colony, which was over 5 years old and had about 3-4 million ants. There were also fire ants living in the ant colony, taking advantage of the already excavated ground. Ibrahim and Adrian then dug at the colony so we could see the soldier ants come out to protect the colony.

Adrian digging up the live ant colony
After loading back on to the tractor, we headed out to collect our own colonies. When we arrived we split into our groups to begin digging. Some of us didn't even reach the fungus chamber after 30-40 minutes of digging, but some groups found large colonies. After collection, we headed back to clean the mud off our boots and eat lunch.For lunch was had fried rice, plantain chips, and black beans.
Largest colony found

Using ethanol to sterilize a spoon 
After lunch we had a break, and many of us walked to the little store in the village for ice cream and candy. At 2:00 we reconvened in the classroom and were assigned our new groups for our final projects. We spent the next hour and 45 minutes discussing, debating, and deciding on our topic question, hypothesis, prediction, and experimental design. At 3:45 we had a half hour coffee break with a colorful bread and coffee. After the coffee break we resumed our work, designing our proposal presentations for our projects. At 6 we went to dinner, which was beef, carrots, zucchini, potatoes, and a coconut type of dessert. We then finalized our presentations, getting ready for when we would present them to the group at 7:00.


(Edit: Sorry for the late post, the internet went down last night)

3 comments:

  1. THose are some impressive ant colonies. Can’t wait to hear all about the experiments and what it’s like there!

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  2. Wow! The size of the colony is incredible! Would love to see a picture of the ants if you are able.

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  3. What an amazing experience thus far!! Your days sound super busy, but super fun too... The food sounds fantastic and it is awesome that your able to contribute in preparations. Keep sharing your adventures, reading this blog totally makes our day here at home.

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