Mrs. Renz's 4th Grade Class JASON XV Expedition Panama Field Notes

Mrs. Renz's 4th Grade Class Redmond, Oregon

Welcome to Mrs. Renz's
4th Grade Class

Web Site!
Tom McCall Elementary School

Redmond, Oregon

Mrs. Renz Teacher Argonaut

On Expedition to Panama

"Notes from the Field"

Wed. January 21, 2004

Join the fun! Join JASON at www.jason.org

Real Science. Real Time. Real Learning.

Mrs. Renz was selected to join the JASON XV Project expedition team, traveling with the scientists and production team to the remote locations of Panama including Barro Colorado Island and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in the middle of the Panama Canal Zone. This opportunity allowed the student and teacher Argonauts joining Dr. Robert Ballard, world class scientists, and guest researchers at the expedition site. Mrs. Renz was in Panama two weeks. Her fourth graders followed her journey each day as she updated her website with her daily journals and photos.

The Weather Right Now in Panama

Mrs. Renz's Field Journal

I got up at 5 am, took the boat to BCI (an hour trip) for an orientation. We were lucky to see an ocelot captured in a trap by Roland Kays. I even got to pet it while it was sedated. It's feet were huge and its fur was so soft. It was an adult female, and Roland thought it was about a year old. It was so awesome! While we were carrying luggage to the student and teacher argo rooms, we saw a troop of about six red spider monkeys playing overhead. Tonight we headed off to film kinkajous at night. Roland Kays showed us the balsa trees that the nocturnal kinkajous were often spotted drinking the nectar of the flowers high overhead. It was great to watch the little creature visit each flower and then give the flowers time to produce nectar before making his rounds again. A possum showed up and challenged the kinkajou for the nectar but the two ended up sharing their dinner. While we were there in the dark forest with our headlamps on, we attracted many bugs. Roland taught us how to use our flashlights and how to spot "eye shine" of rainforest mammals and spiders, too. We saw several tarantulas and many other spiders. We had a pesky coati trying to get into our van to eat the dinners we left on the seats. On the way back to our hotel we saw the world's largest rodent, the capybara, in the swamp near the road. That was a bonus to our evening.

- Mrs. Renz from the rainforests of Panama.