Windsor Teens in Costa Rica To Help Fight
Turtle Extinction
By Sherrie Peif
When Emily Beardmore first heard that a trip
was being planned by the advanced placement
biology class at Colorado's Windsor High
School, she thought about how much fun it
would be.
“I thought it would be a really good
experience to go with other friends and
teachers to another country in an
environment other than a vacation
environment,” the 17-year-old said.
A few months later, Emily got her chance
when she and 14 of her classmates, along
with advanced placement biology teacher
Tamara Pennington and chemistry teacher
Glenn Peterson, went to Costa Rica for eight
days in late May.
The trip was part of a program through the
Eco Teach Foundation, which is an
organization that supports conservation of
endangered species and responsible resource
management in Costa Rica.
Pennington learned about the program while
she was at a science convention in Denver.
It was something she knew she wanted her
students to participate in from the time she
talked to the organizers.
“It was not just a tour,” said Pennington,
who organized the trip. “You can go any
place in the world on just a tour. This one
was hands on, really working with the sea
turtles and practicing conservation. It just
seemed like the perfect science field trip
for kids who think they want to get into
science to see what it's really like to be
out in the field and immerse yourself.”
While in Costa Rica, the teens — most of
whom were either AP biology students or
preparing to become AP biology students —
helped rescue eggs from leatherback turtles
on the coast, spent time with indigenous
tribes, visited a school, zip-lined across a
rain forest and visited an organic farm.
Emily said her time on the turtle project,
which was the focus of the trip, was
“crazy.”
“We were walking on the beach at night and
you can't see anything — just see a big
black dot,” she said with a laugh. “I was
not expecting the turtles to be that big.”
The turtles are leatherback turtles, which
are becoming extinct because their eggs are
poached for use as aphrodisiacs and food.
During nesting season, the turtle comes onto
the beach and digs a large hole where she
lays from 100 to 120 eggs. The students
would wait until the turtle was done digging
the hole. Then, two students would each grab
one fin to keep them out of the way while a
third student would collect the eggs in a
bag.
“When they would flex their legs while
laying their eggs they were really hard to
control because they were a lot more
powerful than you would imagine,” Emily
said.
Once the eggs were collected, the students
took them back to a hatchery and dug holes
to replicate the hole the mother turtle had
made and then buried the eggs for the 60
days needed to hatch.
Students also got to witness some of the
earlier hatchlings emerge while they were
there.
“We were really lucky because this time of
year you still have the end of the season
laying turtles, but the turtles that came
early in the season, their babies are
hatching,” Pennington said. “When the
hatchlings come out, they collect them all
because they don't like to let them go to
the sea until night, so predators don't see
them, so they collect all the hatchlings and
weigh them and take some data, and then at
night we let them go back into the sea.”
Both Emily and Jasmine Aas, also an incoming
senior who attended the trip, agreed, saying
it was something they would do again,
something that made them appreciate what
they have and something they would recommend
to future students.
“It was an amazing experience,” Emily said.
“You go to another country to see what their
culture is like and learn what their
everyday lives were like. It made me really
want to help out my mom a lot more than I
do, and appreciate what I have.”
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