DAY 

MORNING

AFTERNOON

Students arrive at San Jose Airport.  Drive to meet and stay with home stay family or at our lodge.

DAY 2

Spanish class in the open-air classroom (rancho) at Eco-Green Campus

Explore the 7 "barrios" (neighborhoods) of Atenas with a Scavenger Hunt.  Potluck dinner at Eco-Green campus.  Local forest engineer or anthropologist as guest speaker.

DAY 3

Community Service Project either cooking and serving lunch for the homeless in Atenas and surrounding towns or working with local children writing and binding books in Spanish and English 

Go to INBio (Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad), a 20 acre national environmental center, to participate in hands-on science projects in different native ecosystems, tropical humid forest, dry forest, and central valley forest science projects

DAY 4

Leave for Estacion Las Tortugas (Turtle Station) on the Caribbean Coast located at the mouth of the Pacuare River.  Take a ferry from the Mawamba dock to beach site

Assist with preservation activities of the Leatherback turtles nesting/hatching, patrolling beach, building hatcheries, measuring turtles, setting hatching loose to sea 

DAY 5

Continue projects with preservation of the Leatherback turtles, partake in an educational course to learn more about the turtles, and take a boat ride with a local guide through canals to see incredible flora and fauna.

DAY 6

Final activities and wrap up assisting with preservation of the Leatherback turtles nesting and hatching 

Travel back to home stay families or lodge in Atenas, stopping at a small village for dinner.

DAY 7

Investigate Volcano Poas, the world's largest crater and hike to a nearby sulfur lake.  Create, ask, and analyze an environmental survey to people about the area.  Go to the artisan town of Sarchi to visit painters, woodworkers, and other hand crafts.

DAY 8

Science Labs and Community Service Projects at a local 20 acre mountain farm that has coffee, fruit, sugarcane, and fish and a river.  Help cultivate, harvest, and bring goods to market.  Conduct water samples and examine the biodiversity.  Camp out for the night at at a primary tree area along the river at the farm. 

DAY 9

Trip to Jaco beach on the Pacific coast to a zip-line through the tropical forest, surf, (this will be the site of the 2009 Surf World Champions), and play beach volleyball, frisbee, and soccer.  Final dinner at Eco-Green campus.

DAY 10

Students depart from San Jose Airport