AMAZON RAINFOREST WORKSHOPS - 2012
Specially Designed for Students & Families  --  by Environmental Expeditions / Hosted by EcoTeach

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

Other important background:  Sample Registration Form, Travel Insurance, Physician Letter, Map, Ecological Diagram, Testimonials

Prices are quoted on double occupancy and include:  Basic travel insurance  ●  Professional Naturalist Guides who are the very best!  ●  Involvement in an Amazon service project  ● Visit Monkey Island  ●  Payments by credit card or check  ●  Optional sessions with scientists  ●  Departure taxes ($14)  ●  AW Online pre-trip learning support   ●  Minimum tips for staff and guide ($50)  ●  All meals and purified water at the Amazon Lodges  ●  Private in-country transportation (bus, boat)  ● Activities and entrance fees. 

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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 workshop that is safe, comfortable, and accessible, offering youth the opportunity to see how indigenous people lead happy lives with few material possessions.

Our Amazon Workshops keep everyone active in the Rainforest and immersed in a developing country experience that has been life changing for students and teachers alike.  Quotations from our Student Workshops offer a glimpse of the reflections after this life experience.

PROGRAM FEATURES

A week of non-stop life experiences includes:  Trading with the Yagua   ●   Fishing for piranha   ●   Night hikes in search of camouflaged creatures   ●   Up-close with primates at Monkey Island   ●   By boat in search of Dolphins   ●   Learning Roof Thatching using Irapay Palm   ●   Testing your skills using a Blow Gun   ●   You'll have a special opportunity to.

• 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.
   
• Explore the flooded forest in a dug-out canoe and play the role of the canopy scientist during mini-research projects.
   
• 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 the Rainforest of a developing country firsthand and without the disruptive influence of major tourist development. They meet indigenous people living their daily lives in harmony with their rainforest environment.  Participants observe the reverence the Amazonian Shamans have for healing rainforest plants during our visit to the ReNuPeRu Medicinal Plant Garden.  Also, travelers have the opportunity to explore 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.

Your visit to Monkey Island’s primate conservation project will also no doubt be a highlight. You’ll see as many as seven kinds of monkeys in their natural environment and be able to interact with up-close and personal.  Watch the Woolly Monkeys tangle, playing  with each other in the lower branches of a nearby tree.  Marvel at the strength of the prehensile tale of the Spider Monkey. Observe the social and foraging behaviors of the Sakis, Tamarins, Marmosets, and Uakaris. Ten species of bananas as well as fruit trees are grown on the island to provide food for the monkeys. 

Students contribute to a Village Service Project and see how indigenous people use the forest for medicine, food, and shelter. Community Service 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.  Exploring life in the Amazon and giving back through service helps students expand their vision of their own future and their place in the world.  Our service activities are organized by the non-profit CONAPAC.

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, Spanish 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 AW Online, the Amazon Library and CONAPAC's Adopt-a-School program.  This 'adoption' provides much needed school supplies and a pen-pal relationship with a Peruvian school.

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Amazon Workshop Online (AW Online)  Join us for 7 facilitated sessions pre-trip focusing on travel preparation, self-discovery, community building, and essential content background. Our “Before-During-After” approach includes Essential Questions, Thought Provoking Content, Web-based Exercises, Links to Photo Albums, and External Website Resources to draw from.  Continue your connection with this life experience online when your return - here on AW Online!

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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 the time of your registration 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!

© 2011 Environmental Expeditions