Oma School
It was such an amazing experience to teach the local students of Oma School near Las Lajas in Panama. Oma is a large rural school in north Panama. We are staying in Las Lajas at a friend’s house near the beach. To get to the school we are working at, we drove for about 30 minutes through the rainforest. The clouds hovered over the green, lush hills and the air was filled with moisture. Locals were bartering in the town or talking to friends along the side of the road. School children were dressed in their school uniforms. The occasaional horse or cow crossed the road which was an added treat to the drive. The country side was beautiful!
Once we arrived to where I thought the school was, they told me that we now had to trek down a mountain to make our way to the school grounds. We walked for 20 minutes down this steep, rocky incline through the mountainous rainforest, towing books, school supplies, and science materials for the school. We made it to the bottom and started to see smiling faces of children. They were intruiged about us new comers!
Due to a small number of teachers, the class sizes are LARGE. At Oma, there are about 600 students and only a few teachers. Each “class” has about 100 students in it!! I had to change my lessons to accommodate such a large group of kiddos! I taught the first group of 100, who were about 6-10 years old. I taught them about our amazing world, filled with living things all around us, including microscopic animals like tardigrades, rotifers and nematodes! They loved the videos and pictures that we took in my class this year. I love sharing what my students back home learned about. Then they helped me collect samples at their school. This was their favorite part! They were so enthusiastic! They started collecting moss and lichen all over and bringing it up to me with a huge smile and hope for approval.
It’s exciting to be collecting and researching tardigrades because so few are. Currently, there are now records or publications of any tardigrades found in Panama. It’s not that they aren’t here. It’s that no one is looking for them here. So, with the help of my new research assistants at Oma School, we can be the first to find a tardigrade in Panama. Anything we find will be publishable! They liked the idea of becoming famous and being a part of real science!
Then I taught 100 or more older students, about 10-15 years old. They were a captive, silent audience. You could hear a pin drop. They were definitely listening. Tomorrow, I will show them what tardigrades were found in the moss from their school. I will also show them how to use microscopes and how to find tardigrades, among other microscopic animals. They will learn how to determine water quality based on what lives in it. I was worried about what to do since the small foldscopes I purchased for them hadn’t arrived yet. However, to my surprise, they had been given as donation, 5 microscopes last year. They hadn’t even opened the boxes yet because they didn’t know how to use them! I opened them up, and was thrilled! I am going to teach the teachers, as well as the students how to use them properly, and how to conduct research, collect surverys, identify animals and other living things and enjoy the life that surrounds them.
Next day-
Well, we opened up the microscopes and I taught the teachers how to use them, then I taught a class of 100 or more kids. I showed them the parts of the microscpe, how to use them, and then what to look for in lichen and moss. When they looked through the scopes, their eyes were wide open. They were so excited. It felt like a scavenger hunt for them. Just looking at slides can be boring, but looking in a petri dish filled with living, moving things, is exciting!
WE FOUND OUR FIRST TARDIGRADE! There was this little boy who was extremely interested. He took over my bigger microscope and was very focused. He finally found one and we all had a big celebration!
It was a very big deal that the students were choosing to stay and continue their searching, because the World Cup was on and Panama was playing. But about half of the students stayed after school to keep looking. They were so excited when they found anything. I would celebrate with them and tell them how smart they are and how they are going to be experts before they know it! They are going to start a tardigrade club. I'll need to send how to videos in Spanish to help them as they learn and grow in this, but it's so exciting to see their interest peak as they learn more about their world.
It was such an amazing experience to teach the local students of Oma School near Las Lajas in Panama. Oma is a large rural school in north Panama. We are staying in Las Lajas at a friend’s house near the beach. To get to the school we are working at, we drove for about 30 minutes through the rainforest. The clouds hovered over the green, lush hills and the air was filled with moisture. Locals were bartering in the town or talking to friends along the side of the road. School children were dressed in their school uniforms. The occasaional horse or cow crossed the road which was an added treat to the drive. The country side was beautiful!
Once we arrived to where I thought the school was, they told me that we now had to trek down a mountain to make our way to the school grounds. We walked for 20 minutes down this steep, rocky incline through the mountainous rainforest, towing books, school supplies, and science materials for the school. We made it to the bottom and started to see smiling faces of children. They were intruiged about us new comers!
Due to a small number of teachers, the class sizes are LARGE. At Oma, there are about 600 students and only a few teachers. Each “class” has about 100 students in it!! I had to change my lessons to accommodate such a large group of kiddos! I taught the first group of 100, who were about 6-10 years old. I taught them about our amazing world, filled with living things all around us, including microscopic animals like tardigrades, rotifers and nematodes! They loved the videos and pictures that we took in my class this year. I love sharing what my students back home learned about. Then they helped me collect samples at their school. This was their favorite part! They were so enthusiastic! They started collecting moss and lichen all over and bringing it up to me with a huge smile and hope for approval.
It’s exciting to be collecting and researching tardigrades because so few are. Currently, there are now records or publications of any tardigrades found in Panama. It’s not that they aren’t here. It’s that no one is looking for them here. So, with the help of my new research assistants at Oma School, we can be the first to find a tardigrade in Panama. Anything we find will be publishable! They liked the idea of becoming famous and being a part of real science!
Then I taught 100 or more older students, about 10-15 years old. They were a captive, silent audience. You could hear a pin drop. They were definitely listening. Tomorrow, I will show them what tardigrades were found in the moss from their school. I will also show them how to use microscopes and how to find tardigrades, among other microscopic animals. They will learn how to determine water quality based on what lives in it. I was worried about what to do since the small foldscopes I purchased for them hadn’t arrived yet. However, to my surprise, they had been given as donation, 5 microscopes last year. They hadn’t even opened the boxes yet because they didn’t know how to use them! I opened them up, and was thrilled! I am going to teach the teachers, as well as the students how to use them properly, and how to conduct research, collect surverys, identify animals and other living things and enjoy the life that surrounds them.
Next day-
Well, we opened up the microscopes and I taught the teachers how to use them, then I taught a class of 100 or more kids. I showed them the parts of the microscpe, how to use them, and then what to look for in lichen and moss. When they looked through the scopes, their eyes were wide open. They were so excited. It felt like a scavenger hunt for them. Just looking at slides can be boring, but looking in a petri dish filled with living, moving things, is exciting!
WE FOUND OUR FIRST TARDIGRADE! There was this little boy who was extremely interested. He took over my bigger microscope and was very focused. He finally found one and we all had a big celebration!
It was a very big deal that the students were choosing to stay and continue their searching, because the World Cup was on and Panama was playing. But about half of the students stayed after school to keep looking. They were so excited when they found anything. I would celebrate with them and tell them how smart they are and how they are going to be experts before they know it! They are going to start a tardigrade club. I'll need to send how to videos in Spanish to help them as they learn and grow in this, but it's so exciting to see their interest peak as they learn more about their world.