AMAZON RAINFOREST WORKSHOPS
Expeditions Specially Designed for Students & Families

2009 Departures

Our Amazon Workshops have received rave reviews, keeping students active in the Rainforest and immersed in a third world experience that for many was life changing.  While discovering birds, insects, frogs, monkeys and plants on the 1/4-mile Canopy Walkway was 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 have we chosen the Peruvian Amazon for our 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.

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For further information call Dr. Frances Gatz at 1-800-669-6806 or email us!