Day 1

First official meeting!

Most of us have gathered last night for our first official meeting with Dani and Santiago from the Yanayacu Research Station. We did a round of introductions and then were briefed on plans for the next week. Santiago taught us a little about Ecuador’s geography and encouraged us to see as much as we can of his beautiful pais. Dani had lots of info on what we can expect this next week and told us her history as a former Earthwatch teacher. Her experience here a few years ago definitely set her life on a new path. After a delicious dinner from our marvelous Samay Glamping hosts, Dani put us right to work as we all pulled out our smartphones and started answering the longest ever (LOL) short survey about ourselves, our interests, our attitudes, and our knowledge. That was the pre-test. We’ll do it again on the last day as a measure of our learning. Dani plans to analyze this information from our group and many others as a part of her grad work.