Environmental Expeditions'

AMAZON RAINFOREST WORKSHOPS - 2010
Specially Designed for Students & Families

Download Sections of our Amazon Travel Guide:  Introduction, Detailed Itinerary, Experiential Model, Costs, Q&A, Safety,

 Map, Ecological Diagram, Physician Letter.

Prices are quoted on double occupancy and include:  Basic comprehensive travel insurance*  ●  Naturalist guide(s) who are the very best!  ●  Involvement in an Amazon service project  ● Visit to Monkey Island  ●  Payments by credit card or check  ●  Optional sessions with scientists  ● Online learning support  ●  Departure taxes ($14)  ●  Minimum tips for staff and guide ($40) ●  All meals and purified water at the Amazon Lodges  ●  Private in-country transportation (bus, boat)  ● Activities and entrance fees.  Air flights and logistics are managed by EcoTeach.*

Our Amazon Workshops keep students active in the Rainforest and immersed in a third world experience that for many has been life changing.  While discovering birds, insects, frogs, monkeys and plants on the 1/4-mile Canopy Walkway is more than exciting, the BIG learning for students often comes from spending a day in a Village in Service to a Community on the banks of the Amazon River.  Quotations from our Student Workshops offer a glimpse of the reflections after this life experience.  More . . .

Unique, active, and fun! Through field experiences at four rainforest lodge facilities in the Amazon basin of Northern Peru, you are engaged in an immersion experience. This expedition is an eye-opening introduction to the environmental and cultural aspects of the Amazon Rainforest and river system.  The program is a third world experience that is safe, comfortable, and accessible, offering youth the opportunity to see how indigenous people lead happy lives with few material possessions. The journey is life changing for teachers and students alike.

PROGRAM FEATURES

• Ascend over 115 feet on a 1/4-mile Rainforest Canopy Walkway, one of the few of its kind in the world.
   
• Observe many ecosystem partnerships in one of the most biologically diverse environments in the world.
   
• Visit local schools and families and interact with people who live on the banks of the Amazon River.
   
• Explore the flooded forest in a dug-out canoe and spot unique and captivating animals and plants on jungle hikes.
   
• Use hand lenses, binoculars, headlamps, maps, taxonomic keys to identify flora and fauna, and other simple field equipment and learn about:

Insect Camouflage & Mimicry   ●   Neotropical Butterflies   ●   Rainforest Canopy Research   ●   Rainforest Conservation  Neotropical Birds & Migration  ●  Reptiles and Amphibians   ●   Rainforest Ecosystem Comparisons  Amazon River Amazon River System, Geology, and Soils   ●   Medicinal Plants   ●   Orchids & Bromeliads

Why choose the Peruvian Amazon for your workshop program? It provides easy access to primary rainforest areas, has political stability and a friendly culture, and provides unparalleled learning opportunities for educators and students alike. Students experience a third world region firsthand and without the disruptive influence of major tourist development. They meet indigenous people living their daily lives in harmony with their rainforest environment. Also, our participants have the opportunity to see the canopy layer of the rainforest on the Canopy Walkway at the Amazon Conservatory of Tropical Studies. ACTS is a science, education, and tourism facility located on a wilderness area encompassing 250,000 acres of primary rainforest.

The Village Service Day is part of the expedition's intercultural exchange that is celebrated with official recognition by village leaders during the day. Our goal is to provide Service Learning through collaborative activities that are engaging and meaningful.

Other opportunities are scheduled to join the Yagua people as they demonstrate and teach their age-old cultural traditions and ceremonies. Trading is a way of life for them and there is an opportunity to trade items such as t-shirts and fish hooks for their native handicrafts, such as blow guns, paddles, necklaces, and woven baskets.

The itinerary reinforces interdisciplinary learning in school subjects such as science, geography, language, and art. It encourages curiosity and inquiry as a basis for science, anchors one's geographic perspective, inspires journaling and field sketching, and immerses students in a culture unlike their own. The intensely rich rainforest environment, simplicity of human life, and local economic challenges are easily observable as part of one intact, interrelated system during each workshop. Students return home with a realistic understanding of the many factors in solving international environmental problems and the option to continue their intercultural connection with the Adopt-a-School program and the Amazon Library. This 'adoption' provides much needed school supplies and a pen-pal relationship with a Peruvian school.

*Travel logistics are managed by EcoTeach, who purchases travel insurance for all participants through Travel Insured.  Basic coverage is part of the land cost of the Amazon Rainforest Workshops.  Cancellation coverage is available at additional cost.  For a Travel Insurance Overview click here.  If you would like to review these policies, please email Deb Smucker and request a description of coverage.  EcoTeach is located at PO Box 604, Poulsbo, WA 98370, 1-800-626-8992.

Your Amazon Rainforest Workshop is specially designed for you by Environmental Expeditions, 9335 Fraser Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland, 20910

For further information about the educational program or experience in Peru, call Dr. Frances Gatz at 1-800-669-6806 or email us!

© 2010 Environmental Expeditions