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

Mrs. Renz's Field Journal

Today my fourth graders and my family were in the audience watching the live broadcast at my PIN site from OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) in Portland, so I was excited for the opportunity to communicate silently with them via the satellite waves. During the 8:30 a.m. broadcast at OMSI I worked with Mike Kaspari as we conducted experiments in the brown food web. It was great to work with Meg Lowman again during the broadcast at 10:00 a.m. and give the weather report from high up in the tree canopy from the Bosun's chair. The view from high up was incredible. I was able to see the epiphytes growing in the trees up close. Click here to watch the Jan. 29 broadcast.

Later in the day, I learned a lesson the hard way always to have my camera around my neck. As I climbed the Donato Trail headed to the camera location, I came upon the Rover crew getting ready to film an episode with Jackie Willis. There in the middle of the path was a long branch with not one, not two, but three sloths hanging calmly from the limb. My digital camera was tucked safely into my JASON backpack half a mile away, so my mind became my camera as I memorized the looks on their gentle looking faces, their long three toes clinging to the branch. Their coat was a multi-colored gray tone and looked stiff and wiry. I was amazed at how long their front and back legs were. The sloth on the middle of the branch crawled off the branch and along the ground as if it were a baby with long arms and legs discovering new found mobility. Jackie’s assistant held the front hand of the sloth as it tried to climb slowly up her body as if it were a small child climbing up its mother for affection. I was impressed by their gentle eyes and their slow movements. Sloths are such beautiful creatures and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the sloth on the end of the stick which had an engorged tick stuck above its eye. It soon became time for me to move on up the trail to the camera location, so I gave one final glance at the amazing creatures I have until now, seen on TV and in books, getting that last image burned into my memory bank from the rainforests of my incredible experience in Panama.

That evening our rover team went on a night hike with Randy Morgan to film the segment called "Bugs at Night." The first thing Randy had us do was turn out our flashlights and adjust our eyes to the dark, then listen to the sounds of the rainforest. It was loud and the sky dark with a half moon and stars shining brightly in the sky. We started walking down the hill on the semi-paved road. One minute later our group stopped and I was reminded of the "Bear Jams" at Yellowstone National Park, where I love to vacation. Whenever people stop in Yellowstone, there must be animals nearby. I applied that same theory to our quick stop in the rainforest. As luck would have it, a three and a half foot viper laid quietly in the grass to the left of the roadway, still, with his head up. Randy Morgan shone his light on the creature and said something like, "Look at that beautiful animal! It is a viper. You can tell it is venomous because it has the characteristic triangular shaped head. Look how his skin is twitching where the centipede is on his skin." It was a little too close for comfort for me! Our group was able to get around and past the snake, and he slithered back into the swampy area near the path. In the meanwhile, I heard a splash in the pond next to the road. I called out to Pat, our director, "Pat! Did you throw something into the pond?" and he replied, "No, but I saw a caiman down here when I was checking this area out yesterday for a possible location to film." Well...there we go again! Another thing in the night to make me nervous! The rest of the hike was uneventful, except that we saw lots of army ants moving their larva to a new location, and the fact that we were nearly eaten alive by mosquitoes, chiggers, and ticks. I used my DEET, so I got no bites, thank goodness. It was an interesting, exciting walk in the rainforest at night.

Mrs. Renz's Photos from Panama