The project, directed by Wendy Welshans, is now in its 11th year. Each year, students spend two weeks researching the animals and habitats in Rara Avis, a biological preserve in Costa Rica. That research is sent to universities and museums across the world. Last week, the group of explorers revealed its latest findings at a day-long forum at Forman, with slide presentations, demonstrations and commentary about their experiences in the rain forest.

Some projects, like extracting venom from the bullet ant, have possible medical benefits. Others, like extracting spider silk, give the local residents an alternate means of income.

All the projects have one primary goal: to preserve what is left of the world's rain forests.
"It's a project I'm involved with that will help save the world one day," said Mr. Bricker, 18, a student at Litchfield High School. "That's what we're going for here."

Students from Wamogo High School and Litchfield high join students from Forman for the two-week journey to Costa Rica. The application pool for the program is growing each year. For this past trip, about 55 students applied for the 13 positions. The group traveled to Costa Rica Feb. 28 and returned March 15.

Litchfield's students were Nelson Bricker and Kevin Waugh. Wamogo's students were Ben Handleman and Adrienne Wright. Forman's students were Noah Cahan, Heather Cowette, Jon Jelenko, Lindie Lorber, Danielle Marshall, Liz Monroe, Kevin Smallwood, Barrett Stapleton and Charlie Weekes.

The students worked in six groups: collecting research on spider silk and scorpions; tracking and trapping rare mammals; test-tube orchids and stained glass palm; migratory bird banding; thermoregulation of reptiles and amphibians, and venom from bullet ants and dung beetles.
"We're building on the research of the last 10 years of our work," said Ms. Welshans, during an interview Wednesday. "Our big deal is to build up and find any breakthroughs on either information on endangered species that are not known, or use of possible sustainable resources for local cattle ranchers, and different wage making opportunities to show that the forest is worth more standing than down."

She said each one of the six research groups came through with some breakthroughs. One group extracted venom from bullet ants and dung beetles. The venom is being sent to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. for testing for possible medical benefits.

Another breakthrough came from the group that worked with reptiles and amphibians. There is a species of lizard in the rain forest that the program has been researching for years. It seems to regulate temperature and therefore might be warm-blooded.

A third project involved the extraction of silk from the orbweaver spider. The program is working with different companies and universities for possible uses of the silk, which is the strongest known fiber.
This year marks the first year the group extracted spider silk. It used a patent held by Ms. Welshans and The Forman School for the silking process. The patent was award last year by the United States Patent Office.

The group also taught the local farmers how to extract the silk so that once the program finds a company that wants to work with the local residents, they can farm the spiders and keep the rain forest standing.

"The whole goal of this project is to slow down tropical deforestation," Ms. Welshans said.
One of the students working on the project, Mr. Bricker, said the silk from the orbweaver spider, or nephila clavipes, is stronger than steel and extremely elastic.

Three people are involved in the process to extract silk with the machine.

One student keeps a record of the time it takes, another records the data and the third extracts the silk. The student allows the spider to walk on his hands, constantly rotating them in circles so that the spider is always moving. Because it is an unstable environment for the spider, it releases silk, eventually breaking the silk off.

The students spent a total of seven-and-a-half hours extracting silk from 28 spiders. At the end of the process, they had collected 5,500 thousand feet of silk.

While students were divided into six teams, Mr. Bricker said they still worked together, helping each other with their research. "We were a big team and we'd all help out each other," he said. "My little Costa Rica family."

The group of students stayed in cabins, which consisted of a large room with four bunk beds in each. They did have working toilets, but their showers were cold.
"We mainly went down to the waterfall to bathe because it was warmer and prettier," Mr. Bricker said.

The last day the students were "upgraded" to hotel rooms because the town appreciated all the work they did, Mr. Bricker said.

"These guys were great, these guys were really great," Ms. Welshans said. "They worked really hard, they definitely had a sense of the mission and they knew what they had to do and they saw the bigger cause."

The rain forest trip is paid for by an annual donation from a Forman alumni, a grant from the Seherr-Thoss Foundation, and money raised by the students from events during the academic year.