Friday, March 30, 2012

Adventures in a Jaguar Preserve

Belize -

Zealous is how one could describe our Forest Ecology Professor, Dave Foster's love for everything outdoors, which was coincidentally where we spent the majority of our time the other week during Forest Ecology. We spent time in Cockscomb Basin Jaguar reserve in Southern Belize studying the forest, spotting tons of wildlife, and doing field research projects. Some of us did projects studying leaf cutter ants, tropical flowers, or tropical birds and their social behavior.


Kelsey (Bethel University) hangs from a particularly tough and woody vine

Throughout the week our eyes were further opened to the beauty and wonder of God's creation. By the end of the week, we had all gained a little bit sharper lens to see the hand of our God at work all around us.


Immature grasshoppers having a party on a leaf


Monday, March 19, 2012

Sustainable Development I

Belize -

In our last class Sara Alexander from Baylor University joined us to open up the world of development for us and help us understand what actual sustainable community development is. We delved deep into the concepts of sustainability, culturally appropriate solutions, and community as we traveled around Belize studying the different faces of development here in Belize.

Forming a clay pot, Sara (Gordon College) learned practically how a local women's group raises money.

Kirsten (Bethel) and Alex (Staff) observe one of the members of men's co-op water seedlings getting ready to be planted.

We took time to look at small scale community run development projects like the San Antonio women's group and also large scale development projects like central farm and the cruise ship industry in Belize.


Central Farm is working to form an increasing amount of urban gardening and farming in Belize.

Bob (Alpha Male) casually looks down at us when we visited his troop at the Community Baboon Sanctuary.