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CAS Night!!

I feel like the end of my CAS experience is closing in! and fast!

It was my turn to present at the annual CAS night for the school, since last year when it was time for the presentation the project wasn't really at a peak and there was no need for funding because we were in the process of growing our first batch, but the year passed and we did a lot of thing that really shot the project forward.

Putting together the presentation really took me back in time to the good memories of starting up the project, opening the river mouth and just whole process of growing the trees and having a positive impact on the members of the community. We had to keep the presentation short and concise because it was all four members of the project having to speak about a part of the reforestation program. So Mayan and I highlighted the perks of the project at the first months and then Felipe and Rochelle talked about the most recent advancements.

I was the first to speak and give a general introduction to why we started this project and how, it was really hard to keep what i wanted to say under two minutes but the goal was to connect to the audience and make them feel the passion that this project has brought out in us. And really this would be our last command of authority in the say of the project because this night we officially passed the project down to Felipe and Rochelle so that they can keep this motivational project going for another year and hopefully years.

For me it was very emotional because it was basically reflecting and seeing the project that I had the idea for move on into good hands were it will continue to grow, and motivate the community to make a change in the world. But the best best part of it, was the support from my family, teachers and my best friends that went out of their day to come and support this big step!

Cheers!

thaaa good team!!

7 earning aspects

LO 1 Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

I have been told that I have always been a natural leader that people look up to and follow. I always seem to exalt in any group of people that I am in Being a very active guy I had to come up with a project that requires action outside, I also have a strong love for nature and it breaks my heart t know that in a not so distant feature a big percentage of mother nature will be destroyed. Having this in mind it was not hard to come up with super awesome and time consuming project that would not just occupy me for 18 months but also gave me the opportunity to inspire others and create a connection like a new friendship with mother nature. And the Avellanas mangrove reforestation project has help me reach this.

LO 2 Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

This project is very simple but the processes that we must undertake to make it succeed has challenged us quit a bit. The main challenge that will always be present in the development of the project is “are the plants going to survive” from the moments that we plant the propogules we start a long waiting period (average 6 to 8 months), during this waiting period we have to monitor the plants very closely. make sure that the have enough water, not too much but not to little, how exposed to the sun are they, make sure that there are no insects that are eating the plants, and one factor that really harmed our fist batch of seeds was weird fungi, which i didn't even realize that could happen only after we planted the baby trees and I conducted research about it. What we have mostly bettered in the project was the methods in the actual process of growing the plants, for example, when we first started we had plants all over the place, super disorganized, now after our first batch we decided to create a “nursery” so that we could keep better track of the seeds and how many we have and how many are missing to meet our goal of 1200.

LO 3 Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

Well in my case it was very easy and motivational. from the very beginning I knew that I had to give back to the community, but i did not want to help humans, i needed to help mother nature and living in the Avellanas area there was a clear opportunity to give back using the mangrove. What I would recommend to future CAS students is to follow what they like to do, Sports, medicine, kids, whatever it is. Now you do have to be creative and come up with a plan to give back or help the community but that depends on what your strengths as a human being are. But if you do something that you enjoy time will fly.

LO 4 Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

Even before we started the CAS experience I have been working on the project. We started in tenth grade when we went and helped the avellanas community open up the estuaries river mouth to drain all of the waters that had build up during the past weeks. ever since then we have been recollecting and planting seeds. We have also have done so much, like creating a relationship with Connect Ocean and creating a team with younger generations so that when Mayan and I finish they can continue the project.

LO 5 Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

Creating a bigger group that are a pert of the project with Felipe and Rochelle has been one of the best decisions that we have made. These two bring a whole set of new skills to the project that will just make it a bigger success, for example Rochelles organization has maintain all of ideas in line and she puts down the deadlines in which that we must have finish what we have proposed to do. And Felipe is the Tech guy of the team, he has place the project on social media and will be working on the creation of nice educational signs to put up at the entrances to the beach. So really, there is more to come and they will take the project into their own hands in a few months so they can continue working with Connect Ocean (mangrove explorer weekend) and just keep the legacy alive!

LO 6 Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance and LO 7 Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

I put these two learning outcomes together because they go quit well together in the reforestation Project. we are trying to bring back a pert of nature that people don’t really recognize the significance and importance of these ecosystems. we want to motivate people from the community to strive to make the world a better place even if its picking up you r own garbage or planting a little seed in a cut recycled water bottle. The purpose of the project isn't really to bring back a mangrove, because this will take years to see the actual results to, but its to show the world that if a few high school students can make an effort to help the environment everyone can.

Exploring around the neighborhood

Pinilla is a very big area with much fun features to it. Being such an active guy I always want to find new things to do and my favorite is adventuring. So on Tuesday I went to check the waves too see if it was worth going to a afternoon surf session, but the wind was pretty onshore and this just makes the waves all mushy and choppy. So I there was at least an hour more of light to the day and i remembered that one of my friends from San Jose had sent me video on snapchat about this one spot in Pinilla that had an amazing view of the area, so i determined myself to go find it since had time. I had a basic notion on what roads to take but there was this one intersection with different intersections that led into different directions. So I took the first one and it ended doing a loop all the way back to were i turned off in, so there was only one option left, I drove all the way up a hill in a clearing were there was a huge rock mountain. I had a feeling it was there, so i followed the road up along side the rock hill until there was no more road to drive on, parked the car and walked my way up to the highest peak. and all i can say is that the view was spectacular but there is a better part to it! This place is PERFECT to create a downhill free ride track!! I was so excited when this came to mind because there is no downhill tracks in this area and I can finally make one! so in the next couple of weeks i will be scoping out lines that have great gnarly potential for biking, and i will also spread the word out to fellow downhill riders about the discovery so we can coordinate and start to put some work into the mountain and create sick jumps, burms, and gnaaaaarly drops off the steep rock faces that this place has to offer.

Now for our CAS project, Mayan and I are thinking about the possibility on hosting another mangrove reforestation day but more focused on a small group, probably connect ocean volunteers. This is because we want to take advantage of the rainy season and finish filling out the beds that are empty still, thus meaning that we are probably going to surpass our goal of planting 1200 seeds.

this is the site!!!! It reminds me so much of Red Bull rampage but not as gnarly!

#rideorride

Change

In our product change is variable factor that can or can not affect the success of the product. And in the overall sense change is what motivated this project to be what it is today, i mean think about it! If that earth quake wouldn't have rising the coast line 1 meter this product would have never develop itself because the mangrove would still be alive and healthy! ( I am not referring to the earthquake and that the mangrove died as something positive). But mangrove forests are one of the ecosystems that are most affected and susceptible to change, and little alterations in the environment can lead to devastating results.

As for the development of the product the biggest and most significant change that really motivates the participants of the groups is to see the success of the plants. Last year when we planted the first batch of seeds, it took at least a month for the propogules to sprout, but as soon as they did Mayan and I literally leaped of emotion (jaja change from no hope to hope!) because we then new that our methods to grow the seeds was finally working. Now there were a lot of variables that could have influence this spike of change, like nutrients in the soil, the waters salinity, environment temperature or maybe even the entering of the rainy season.

After our event a few weekends ago, we wer able to plant at least 800 seedlings, and the next steps in the projects development is to take care of all of these seeds so that they can grow successfully and are able to survive in the mangrove once they are transplanted. Due to the amount of wok that has brought upon the senior class, I have not had a chance to go and check on how the plants are doing, but a few days ago Rochelle sent a picture to the groups chat of all the seeds that we planted, and guess what!! a vast majority have started to sprout!! This is great news, the rains of the season have brought all but good luck so far. So its a great relief to know that we are going to have some plants that will survive for the future of the project. Another great thing that is happening, is that the rains are flushing the mangrove seeds all out to the beaches. So I think that what we have to do in the next week or two is gather a small group of volunteers and go and recollect some more seeds, therefore reach our 1200 seed goal!

Event....Check!

Wuuuujuuuuuu!!! it was a complete success!

The day before I decided to go over to las Olas to drop off some of the materials that we were going to need on Saturday, so i gathered up all of the shovels that were laying around the house and two wheal barrels.I also took the fruits that I bought, which were three watermelons, two pineapples and a bunch of bananas. There was a heavy rain fall on Friday, so this limited me to go into the mangrove and check if there was seeds, but it was too muddy to enter with the car. But i was able to drop everything off at the hotel.

So we all met at Cabinas las Olas (the team, Mayan,Fe and Rochelle) around 8 so that we can go through a quick run through of what the day is going to look like. Around 9 to 9:30 the people started to show up, except the connect ocean team, they got there on time. But it took a while for the people to shoe up. So after waiting for 30 minutes so the people could arrive we started the event. There was a error in communication because as soon as they started I have to go pick up some papers so basically i missed the first charla of the day. After they introduced the day we divided the groups up into three and the work started.

I took my group into the mangrove with Sio, we took two cars and six volunteers. within our group we divided and conquered, so that we could cover more ground with in the actual mangrove. Seed recollection was slow but after an hour we headed back to the event with at least 650 seeds, pretty good number taking into consideration the amount of time that we had. Once we were back the other teams had already made progress with filling the bags, we settled the down the seeds and jumped right into helping as well. I went with the mad team and finished filling up the bags while the other group started to plant the seeds.

The end result of the day was that we filled up the majority of the bags, but there are still like 150 to fill up, and we planted 800 seeds!!! this is a great number and we are closing in on our 1200 seed goal!

I want to thank everyone that came to help and we are thinking on planning another event to fore-fill the our goal of 1200 seeds!

What the event is going to look like for Saturday.

Well as i mentioned in the last journal entry, we were planning an event as one of our final steps for our CAS journey. And In this Blog I was going to explain a bit more on what it will consist on.

So we made these beds over break that are meant to hold a large amount of seeds, so we can have them in a more controlled and adaptive environment. After we build them we fill up the containers we had with muck and planted 100 seeds to start, and this barely filled the bed up.

What is Saturday going to look like?

Well we are planning on starting the event at 9 am, meeting area, cabinas las olas, the restaurant/parking lot. We will open the event with the fallowing speech

- A warm welcome to all of the volunteers that came

- Mayan and I, with the power point presentation that we made for morning meeting, will debrief on what our CAS project is about and what we have done during our 16 month experience so far. This starts from the very opening of the river month to present day

-Rochelle will then take lead in describing what happen to the mangrove. She would debrief on the history and what the 2012 earth quake caused. Basically why the mangrove died

- Once Rochelle is done with the historic part, Felipe will join, as well as one of the connect ocean team members (Sio i think) to explain the next phase of the Avellanas Reforestation Project. They will talk about the mangrove explorer program that Connect Ocean has and then the mangrove explorer weekend.

Once this small Introduction is done, Mayan and I will proceed with explaining how we are going to structure the event, the work that is going to be done.

So depending on the amount of people that assist, we will devide them into three groups. Why into three? Well there are different jobs that need be done with in the 3 to 4 hour time frame.

Group 1

This first group is going to be the most important occupation for the day. It will be lead bye Rochelle and Felipe. So once the introduction to the event is done, they will take their group over to her house, with the bags/containers, and the most of the shovels and weal barrels. From here Rochelle and Felipe will explain to the group the amount of dirt that is necessary to use for each bag/container, they will make sure not to over fill and take too much muck from the mangrove. they will fill bags up, transport them up to the wooden beds then put them in order inside the beds. Their goals is to fill the 900+ bags we have and containers as well. This job is the dirtiest and longest to work on.

Group 2

Group two will be led bye Mayan. She is in charge of taking a smaller group down to one of the grids that we have marked, and plant the 100+ seeds that have already started to grow and have root systems. Her job is to instruct the group on how to carefully place the baby trees into the mangrove with causing minimal damage to the roots of the plants. She will also the tell the group that for each plant that goes into the grid has to be 1 meter apart from each other, this because we must reach our goal of planting 100 samplings per grid and we have 12 grids in total. This particular job should take between 30 to 50 minutes. Once the job is done they will head over and help group 1.

Group 3

Now for group 3. I will be in charge of leading this group. For the most part, i will choose certain people who will assist to the event for this job. I need fast and agile people for the job because we will go into the mangrove and look for seeds for an hour, this include working our way through harsh terrain and picking up seeds as we go. Once we have collect as many seeds as we can with in the hour we will head back to cabinas las Olas and help with the other Jobs.

And for a final activity we would like to take those who assisted to one of our grids and have them plant 2 to 4 pencils (seeds) per person so that they can say that they directly contributed to restoring the mangrove and this motivate them to help conserve the communities ecosystems

We will be offering refreshments and snacks such as fruits and chips for the people who come. There will also be a big speaker to keep people motivated and have a sense of joy throughout the event. The connect Ocean team will provide the event with a first aid kit and trained, lets say staff, in case of an accident, so they will be there to treat with any possible risks. and We are hoping to have more than 20 volunteers that will assist. We have reached out to the community through social media and mouth to mouth communication. If all goes well we will have successfully planted 1200 seeds!

Hope Saturday is a success but I personally want the people to understand how important the ecosystem are to our planet and have then connect with nature. have them find a new best friend as Ernst says, so that they can protect mother nature as if it was an important friendship in their lives.

We back at it!

I dont know how to name the blog! jajaja

So school started yaaaay! Riiiiight.....

First weeks of school have been ok, I would think there would be more stress bye the third week but I guess I can say that I’m used to the work load that is being layed down on us. What I mean is that we have to do IA’s, extended essay, TOK essay, FOA’s and all of that lovely stuff, but he its the last hard trimester they say, so its time to get serious and excel, work hard, not complain as much, dedicate my free time in being productive, focus on what matters, dont let drama influence my life or fake people. Its necessary for me to have a stable state of mind, how can i do this? I should work out when ever I can, surf, go down to the estuaries and fish, take walks through the trials in Pinilla, and just have some active physical time after school. And so far I feel super motivated to succeed, even though its going to be hard, but hey! WELCOME TO REALITY SEB!!!

Now for the Project:

We have assembled a team right! Mayan and I integrated tw juniors into the project and I haven't yet explain well who they are and what they mean to the project. And as we all know Mayan and I are soon to move on from the beautiful CAS world.

We have our wing man, Felipe Zahr. I have to admit that he is not as involved as much as Rochelle is but he is a huge help pf the project. We have Felipe as the tech man of the group, he is in charge of the Instagram and keeping that part of social media (well who follow the page) updated with what we do. Felipe will be focusing on creating two informative boards or signs that will be placed at the entrance and exit of the bridge that runs through the mangrove. Me and him are planning on setting that up during this trimester, well I will guide him with constructing the blobs of information that would go on the signs. And of course he will be present for planting and taking care of the seeds.

Now Rochelle is the second Junior that is in the team and also a very important one. She will be taking the project into her own hands once Mayan and I leave. So this means she si the one that will be working with Connect Ocean in a future to develop the mangrove explorer program and so on. Her character is very disciplined and maintains everything with a structure and order, what i mean to say is that she is like the mini “jefa or boss”. So Mayan and I run an idea down and she would organize the time frame in which we want to work around. And she keeps me in line. I have big hopes with her and this project once we leave.

Now Mayan, fiel compañera, I feel like if she was there to support me this project would have been just an idea that passed bye in tenth grade. From the very beginning we worked together, going to the mangrove, digging up dirt, recollecting hundreds of seeds and so on. She is the “jefa” when she has an idea or when we must work on something it gets done. She is realistic, so her job lets say is to keep my crazy ideas reasonable and not too big so we can really work on them, oh, and she pushes my lazy butt around so I have to work. And really there are so many other things that I can talk about that gives her a particular character in this whole project, but i will leave the cheesy ending for the last blog.

What are planning on doing these up coming weeks

Well in order for us to complete this CAS experience, its necessary to put an event together were we integrate people from the community and communities around the area. So the event is going to be..... Well we are going to send out flyers, publish things on social media like facebook, reach out to local restaurants (with the flyers), and ask other schools like CRIA, if people are willing to volunteer for one day. We want to bring the group of people who are willing to help, down to Cabinas las Olas and the mangrove. We want to spend some time walking the the river mouth and walking through the mangrove educating the group on what happened to the mangrove (its death). Once the walk is over divide the volunteers into different groups, so one group would focus on filling up the bags with dirt, another planting some of the already growing plants that were not grown in a base, so one person of the CAS group would take a small group into the mangrove to plant. While some plant and fill bags, its necessary to go into the mangrove and recollect more seeds so that there is enough to reach our goal, which is 1200 plants. Well and there is more too, so this Thursday the 20th we are going to plan out the event well and continue the planning process throughout the next up coming days so that we can host the event Saturday 29th. I will fully explain the plan for the next blog. This was only a teaser.

And here the blob that will go on Facebook

La Paz Community School 12th grade students Mayan Koren and Sebas Leon have actively been a part of the Avellanas mangrove reforestation project. In the past year we have been studying and developing a sustainable solution for this mangrove forest to return to its natural state. We have realized that in order to create a change we can not do it alone! We need the help of our community.

What can you do to help?

We are inviting you to come be a part of the Mangrove reforestation team on Saturday -- of September by planting seeds into our new mangrove nursery! Our goal is to collect and plant 1,000 seeds that will be planted in the mangrove. Meet us at Cabinas Las Olas on Saturday -- at 9:00am. For more information contact [email protected] or call (506) 8650-7243.

Help us Restore our Mangroves!

Here are the pictures for the last Blog!!

Building, Recollecting, Scouting

So after the two meeting we had at Rochelles, I went with my dad to Santa Cruz to buy the wood that was 30000 colones cheaper than the exact same planks in the Tama Hardware store, we all went to Rochelles place to start to build!

Wuuuujuuu fun! Finally some action!

So once we got back from Santa Cruz, Mayan came to the house, and with some help from the construction workers in the neighborhood we gave the wood perfect cuts so when we put it together it would have a perfect fit. As soon as we finished cutting the wood we headed to Las Olas. Oh, we also took all of the planting containers with us to have all of those material down there. We carried the heavy wood from the parking lot to Rochelles house, well Roch took two pieces and I took the other 10, so that means five trips back and forth with two pieces of would on your shoulder, and im talking about heavy three meter planks, and Mayan was in charge of transporting all of the planting material. Once we got to the spot, PUM! wok time! I was in charge of putting the rectangular “cajones” together, Rochelle started to fill the containers up with muck down in the mangrove and Mayan was cutting the recycled bottles in half to the use as planting containers. Mayan and I’s jobs were finished pretty fast, so once done we all went down to the muck and helped Rochelle fill up the containers with muck. And I tell you something! Its funny to be the only boy working in the group (well there is Felipe as well but he was travelling so he was not present), well its easy, since you are the “stronger one” I got to do all of the heavy work. So after I had to take basically all of the planks to from the car to Roch’s house, I was the one that had to push the loads of filled containers up the steep hill to then place them into the “cajones”. But you know, it was a good work out, so i dont want to hear the girls talking about butt workouts because they missed out on a good one.

Once the cajones and some of the containers were filled, we took of to the mangrove with the little light we had to see if we could recollect some seeds. As iI have said in past blogs, this years season is super slow, we barely had rains so the reproduction cycle of the mangrove is slow as well. But we went to check anyway. So once we were back in the mangrove we were able to recollect some seeds, it was not a big amount but it was good for the trip. We headed back to Rochelles house and planted the seeds that would fit in the containers we had. So when we get back to school we have to concentrate on getting more and more containers in order to start to plant and plant like crazy!!

I also went one day alone to the back parts of the mangrove to scout of different dead areas and the one that is closer to Hacienda Pinilla has started to reforest itself naturally, there being hundreds of baby trees that have already stuck to the ground and are at least 50 cm meters high. Plus i had a peaceful walk through the mangrove and i saw lots of animals like snakes and the local croc!

wood pics

Coming up with a planting plan

Once I got back from Dominical, there was school subject that we had to work on, and when i mean work on, is to figure lots of things out.

Before break we left everything set, as to plans, on building a nursery, like a green house similar to Faustos. This is because it could be an easier way to safely grow 1200 plants. So as soon as I got back, the CAS group got together to figure out a design, materials and pricing. So Mayan and I headed down to Avellanas (Rochelles place) to design this part of the project. And well, it took a big turn. So after drawing out the green house, figure out spacing for all of the plants and other details like water systems, lighting, and accessibility, the design ended being four squares. Four squares that would be placed in Rochelles back yard so she could keep a close eye on the plants while they grow. This was an easy way to keep track of all the plants that we are planning on growing. We can easily water all of the plants with both fresh and salt water. And since the plants wont be under a roof, the can adapt to the guanacaste and the mangroves temperatures.

These “cajones” would be conformed by two three meter wood planks and two one point five meter planks in order to form a rectangular shape. So we can fill the area up with all of the plants that can fit.

Our next step wast to find some place were we can buy the materials, which really were 12 three meter plus wood planks. The team planed to go into Tamarindo and ask two different hardware stores, but we only went to “El Colono”. There service was terrible and very slow, but when they finally attended us and found the wood planks that we needed the final cost was 64,000 colones. So at first we were very happy with our results, and between the whole team we would split up the prices to cover the costs. So the day that we were supposed to go buy the materials at El Colono, my dad made me go with him to Santa Cruz, and once we finished whatever he had to do we stopped bye an acerradero to see if we could buy the planks there, and holy jesus!! For the same materials, we were able to get 12 planks for 32,000 colones, basically half the price. This just goes to show how much more expensive the Tamarindo area is.

Vacations, Oh lovely VACATIONS!!

For this blog I’m going to talk about tree of my favorite memories or experiences of this vacation where i was active.

Heading down south!

As we do every break we go down south to Dominical and Uvita where we are originally from. THis time we were down there almost a month! And for me once we hit the two week mark I get very bored and thrive to look for things to do. Well this break i was basically obligated to work on extended essay and my History IA. Not my favorite things to do on break but hey! percs of being a IB student right! wujuu!. So I spent some time working on school obligations. For our first week that we were down, we took Martina, a class mate down, this was very fun because I had a buddy to hang out with and go on little adventures around the area. She was surprisingly energetic this trip, we were constantly going down the farm, swimming in the river almost every day, I brought over my life long friend Max as well for a night. When Max came over we went to the whales tale for the day. here is a picture.

This was a highlight of the trip because since i was a little Kid my grandmother would always take me to this spot, what you can do once being there is limited right, so you basically go to snorkel around on the reefs and since its a national park the reefs are much more protected the other areas around the coast, allowing there to be more biodiversity. And if you are not in he water observing the amazing coral reefs and fish, you are walking around the tide pools that form on the rocky areas of the tale. With Max and Martina, while Marti got a tan, Max, Luka and myself, walked around the tide pools looking for eels that get trapped once the tide goes out. I strongly recommend the place for any person that is visiting the area, because its such an odd miracle that mother nature has giving us.

The Irony of this place is that the name of the park is called “Bahia Ballena”, we call the beach “ The whales Tale”, and every year hundreds of whales migrate from southern side of the pacific ocean, from the Antarctic waters to this bay to give birth and nurse there young ones. So being there a beach that literally has a whales tale shape and its waters hosts hundreds of whales make this place exceptional the world and has gained popularity globally. And Luck for us, we have majestic view form our house to the whole park. And for this trip we had the chance to go out on a boat right when the season starts in the middle of July and go whale watching with the family. The day was full of fun, we started the trip trolling on some currents 5 miles offshore looking for mahi mahi, to then head in shore to some rocks that peak out of the bay, we were casting for rooster fish, jack, needle fish and snapper. And to close the trip off we followed a mother humpback whale and her baby for an hour. It was truly amazing to see this gentle giants literally two meters from the boat cruising in their element, and the best part is when you turn off the boats motor, this is when your body and thought get filled with love and positive energy as you can hear their communicative melodies.

Na off course when we go down south the surfing aspect of the trip can never be missed. This trip the wave were very funky. Messy swells, big closed out waves to super flat days. Most of the surf sessions were very windy, stormy, or after a big rain. The first big days of the swell we surfed at our secret spot which is a point break, and the wave here usually break better than the beach breaks when the swell is big, we caught some fun over head runners but nothing special. One day that really stood out was on day that a swell was about to hot Domi, and the day was really dark and it felt like it was going to rain. Bit the conditions constantly switched, so the ocean went from super glass conditions to a strong onshore to a heavy rain, and this was constant patter for at least three hours, but hey I was still surfing because I knew that at the end of the afternoon with the tide dropping Domi was going to be on fire. And so it was around 4:30 pm all of the conditions just aligned perfectly and all I can say is wow. Such a fun sesh before heading up to Guana, super glassy blue turquoises water and super hollow and fast waves, caught at least 5 perfect barrels were you actually come out and clame it as if you were a pro.

So the vacations down south were very relaxing and I ad lot of time to reflect on what is to come for this twelve grade year and last year of school in general. And you know what, my feeling towards the IB program have not change but hey! what can i do about it, just suck it up and keep up with the grind!

Cheers CAS!!

Next steps Stakeholders

I have to admit that communication has not been great, especially on my part with the rest f the team members, especially with my head partner of the project. And I am going to work on such skill in order for us all to work well and efficiently, knowing what is going on with all of the sectors of the project.

Now the project has taken some drastic turns throughout the year, we went from just recollecting a couple hundred seeds and panting them in some home made pots at the beginning of our CAS experience to actually forming a big team that is willing to help restore the mangrove. In school we added one super student and friend that is basically caring this project forwards once Mayan and I leave, Rochelle; also having back up students from the tenth grade as Felipe and Dylan that are willing to help with whatever is required to do. Our external stakeholders that throughout the year have grown close to us and the project has been Connect Ocean. Ernst has motivated me to try to make this project bigger and integrate more members of the community that are willing to help, Ernst is basically helping us carry this project to success and organizing the steps that we must undertake to project ourselves as entrepreneurs in the conservation field and start that so called ripple affect throughout the community. Thanks to him we have developed steps that we will be working on, he has hooked us up with various scientists, which in my last blog I described; they have sat with us and gone through our project, what we want to achieve, and from there formulate a game plan to fallow. This game plan has been divided in to different section. The first section or step is t start to plan the construction of a green house to host all of the pants that we are awaiting, now this takes up time in order to find the ideal spot, figure out our pricing fr the material, dimensions, capacity, and also the financing aspect of it. But at the same time start to plan out programs, which goals are to integrate others, kids from different communities, schools, areas of the country, and even foreigners, to come and join the mangrove explorer program that Cabinas las Olas and Connect Ocean will be hosting. Some side ideas that we will be working on is the seed depos system “ps: im not sure about this... we are still discussing it”, and also the adopt a mangrove and promoting of the project on social media, which Felipe and Dylan are going to start to work on once we have a clear idea on what we exactly want. Now another thing that we have to be aware of is the prime seeds season in August, so by this time we at least have too have the green house up and ready t host the baby seeds. I will be in charge of finding the ideal spots within the mangrove to recollect the seeds, this is because we will listen to Jemmas recommendation, which is to recollect the seeds from within the actual mangrove, therefore the seeds are more fertile and have a higher chance of growing successfully. And also Mayan and Rochelle have started a “grid” on google earth to have an idea on were we are going to want to plant the little trees, so that we have an idea or actually have the areas pin pointed to “go with the flow” of the upcoming natural reforestation that the mangrove itself has already began along the margins of the forest.

There is a lot to be done, so on my part, I will work more on communicating what is going on with the rest of the group to make sure that we are all on the same page and with this ensure success of the project. And without the influence of Connect Ocean and the support f Roche, this project would have still been a small, and repetitive cycle f growing and panting seeds, which is great! But with hep and motivation of these stakeholders, we wouldn't have aspired to go so big! A and hopefully we are able to inspire others to do the same and respect, but most importantly love mother nature.

#lovethegrove

Jemma’s Visit

So the project has taken a big hold up for the moment, the which i will explain the motives and the planning further on in the blog.

But some awesome news!! The scientist from Australia finally came to Costa Ricaa! As a team, we actually forgot that she was coming, so when Ernst texted me when we could meet it was kind f a surprise and a rush to get everything together lesson learned: check your calendar and the to do list! But it all turned out perfect.

We scheduled a meeting a Sunday, meeting point, cabinas las olas. So Ernst was going to come around 4 pm with the Connect ocean team, well Sarah and three other biologist, Jemma included as one of them and the other two were actually friends of my family, so it was a real surprise for me to see them with Ernst working on this project with us. And do to a lack of communication n my part, when i told Mayan about the meeting it was a little too late because she had already made plans, she actually had a dance performance. But of course lil Rochelle was present.

So I went an hour earlier t meet up with Rochelle t try to have a game plan to present to Jemma and look professionals, but we ended up just planing a slide show and some drone footage of the whole mangrove. Once the Connect ocean team arrived we didnt waste time in ging to check out the mangrove and walk the bridge. As soon as we started to walk the bridge Jemma started to ask me about the overall talk that I usually give when explaining the project to others, but in this case her questions were much more profound and really trying too find the main source of were our knowledge came from. So as we walked the bridge Rochelle and I was pointing out the areas were we had plant the first batch of seeds and we went over our success rate and the factors that influenced the death of most of the plant we had put in. And then she kind of pointed out some of her experiences with the methods that we were implying when growing the seeds and said that in one of their projects they only had a 20% success rate, but then Jemma said that they tried a different technique. This technique was going out, walking threw the mangrove and picking up fresh seeds and going and planting the seeds that same day. They had a 70% success with method, and she recommended us to try it out. There was also a very interesting thing that she pointed out and it was that the margins of the mangrove were naturally coming back an that we should take that into consideration when planting, focus more on the central parts that are dead in the mangrove.

After walking the bridge and letting the scientist scope out the area we returned to the restauraunt to sit down, get some coffee and start to talk business. So i pulled out the images I had with the progress that we have done, and the best part of the meeting was when I showed her the google maps overview. This is because she finally believed our theory on why the mangroves died, becuase of the closing of the river mouth. Now she look at the map and she went straight to the sand bars of the Avellanas beach, she points out to the front of the river mouth, the beach part, and its so obvious. There is more sand on the specific part of the beach, which actually acts like a barrier, so all of the sand from the southern part f the beach is getting caught up on the specific spot of the beach. Not allowing the sand to to flow to the northern part of the beach. To sum up what I am saying, the river mouth has a higher concentration of sand than the rest of the beach, thus acting like a barrier and causing the mouth to close up. So Jemma explain this to us and yeah, it makes total sense, but this call’s for a much bigger and pricier project that we aren’t really ready to take on right now.

Now she gave us some steps to follow for the rest of the year, which are:

- Focus on making a green house first, so that when the rainy season comes and the seeds start to promulgate we are ready to host 1000+ seeds

- mark a designated area in which we will plant the next batch

- prepare all of our soil locations, grids for the green house in rider to have the seedling and also divide the seeds depending on the location that we picked them up from

- assemble a meeting that week in school to assign rolls for the members of the mangrove team in La Paz

- Set up a way to raise money with the mangroves themselves, which we left Felipe in charge of

- and one of the final thing we should start to put our minds on is to set up the signs

- Oh, and also get money

But overall this visit from Jemma was a great experience and I really have wished for Mayan to be there because Jemma is such an amazing woman and the fact that she is in one of the top places for mangrove reforestation programs in Australia is really amazing to have someone like her interested in helping you bring back small but big ecosystem, that really, the results will be shown in 100 years but at least we can say that we tried. So a big thank you for Connect Ocean and my main man Ernst for bringing down such an inspiring person down to Costa Rica! Cheers.

Starting to Recollect Everything!!!

So we have been waiting for the first rains of the year to hit, well they have, and I also remembered that exactly a year ago and maybe a few weeks Mayan and I officially started this project by going over to Avellanas on Wednesday to help Roche and some people from the local community to open up the river mouth. And that same day recollect the first mangrove seeds that we planted.

two weeks ago, due to the new rains, Mayan and i took the CAS class to go over to the recycle area of the school and look for more plastic containers that we can use for the upcoming seeds that we are going to recollect ONCE THEY WANT TO START TO COME OUT!!! well we gathered 25 plastic containers. Which 7 of them are 1.5l or small, and these can contain 14 plants; 7 medium sized containers, which can hold 28 plants ( two per half); and 11 big containers, sums up to 33 plants (3 per cut half). And the overall amount of plants that we can plant are 75 mangroves seeds

Now with this batch of containers, Mayan and I decided to head over to the langosta estuary last week (wednesday 30th). This is because during some of our meetings we came to a conclusion that we wanted to try to grow different samples of mangrove seeds that come from different mangroves through this coastal area in order to see the diversification of the species and the compare the plants from the different beaches that they were recollected in. So we ended up walking up and down the beach, but, I have noticed that the seed season is taking longer than we expected. After our beach trip, we counted 60 mangroves that we recollected, and to be honest, I was expecting there to be more seeds around, both in Langosta and Avellanas. But the good thing about the late seasons is that we are able to gather more containers and better planning for future planting of the seeds we will recollect.

To do list:

- Keep gathering containers

- Prepare to receive scientist

- Figure things out in my head about everything

- Ask team to recollect more containers

- Keep a look out for more seeds

- Plant the ones we already have

Brain stooooorm

Obstacle for mangrove project

I feel like the main obstacle other then the seasons, is the see growth. As in time lines, if the plant is growing nice and healthy, strong, if the roots systems will with hold once they are put into the mangrove and other factors that may affect growth, like water compositions (fresh, braquish and salt). Oh and another big one... BUGS THAT EAT THE PLANTS!!

How will we over come:

Greenhouse to maximize control in plant growth

Study the nutrients in the mangrove

control an average PH level in the water that we will be feeding the seeds with

Eco friendly bug repelant!

Maximize the number of pods (seeds) so that error is reduced

Have biologist from Australia go into the mangrove with us so she can conduct research in order to help our project

Clear the debree around the designated planting area

Integrate more local community members in the development of the seeds and even when we go and plant

Promote more the project

educate the tourist that come into the mangrove and the smaller kids around the community to respect such ecosystem

#justdoit #cas #AK7 #lovethegrove

Mangrove Project Vid!!!

Here it is! Its a really well made video!!

https://vimeo.com/264555047/6b5483e7ae

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