19:40 by :Hello to all, this will probably be my last blog entry as I am coming home Saturday. Thank you Sra. Melville´s class, I studied spanish in high school, it´s amazing how much being immersed in a language help you learn and remember. AgaIN LET me try to answer all the questions and try to fit them together. Cloud forests are a unique ecosystem, they are between 1300m and 6300m. In costa rica, the trade winds blowing clouds and the clouds get trapped by the mountains. Therefore the cloud forest is almost like an island created when the coccos plate ran into the caribbean plate and pushed up the mountains creating a unique environment and organisms that live there. Therefore in general rainforest would be larger. Actually native people lived in the cloud forests many years before the Spanish came, but there is very little know about them. Today there are still squaters that are living in the cloud forest because there are way too few people patroling the borders. The temperature is cooler here because of the clouds and elevation. It has been in the low 70s each day. In the cloud forest it gets very dark even in the day, there is such a dense canopy, it blocks out the light. I never really felt in danger though, like most animals there are shy of people. The most dangerous animal is probably the Fer de lance an agresive snake that is very venemous. I haven´t seen any. Things like jaguars are far too rare to be dangerous. Also mosquitoes are dangerous because they spread malaria. In terms of plants, the epiphyte most common is the bromilaide, where many species lay eggs in the water that is acumulated there. I don´t think a cloud forest could exist in the US because a cloud forest is defined by the species there and those species don´t live in the US. We were warned about army ants on two seperate occasion to always be aware of where you step. THe golden toad is a mystery, many might attribute this to climate change but there is no proof. Things that are attributed to climate change arespecies coming high up the slope of the mountain. Mosquitoes appearred for the first time here 5 years ago, pigeons were seen in town for the first time this year and a bird called the bill bird arrived several months earlier over the past few years. There are also invasive species beginning to invade the cloud forest and for the first time ever this year monsoon went from the pacific through to the atlantic. If these trends continue, the warmer water in the ocean may cause clouds to go higher and change the whole "cloud" forest. There are ways to sustain this cloud forest though and we´ll talk about them when I get back. The arenal volcano is not really effecting the cloud forest, but I can not pick a favorite. The Cloud forst was a very mysterios and beautiful place, you expect a dinosaur to coming walking from the underbrush! I´ve seen three exotic insects, the walking stick, the leaf mimic katydid aAND THE bioluminescent clack bug. I talk abou them when I see you.

Hello to all my friends reading, I´ll see you soon. I love and miss my family, but will see you soon.

19:40 by : Hola estudiantes, son los ocho en Costa Rica, pero son los diez en Danvers. Hace calor, pero no mucho calor, me gusta el tiempo aqui.

Visito el volcan por que es muy interesante. No se por que otros personas tienen serpientes animals domestico, pero es una problema mas grande en Florida. El presidente de Costa Rica se llama Oscar Arias. No hay otro professores de Massachussetts, los professoras eres de Vermont, Maine, Connecticut y otros estados. El director del program se llama Miguel, es muy simpatico. Hay muchos hotels en Costa Rica, ahora en Monteverde. Todos los pueblos en Costa Rica tienen una escuela, hoy visitar una escuela en Monteverde se llama Centro de Education Creativa Hay muchos animales en el bosqu tropic. Hay monos, aves, serpientes, ranas arboles, y gatos grande. En el bosque Nuboso hay 100 especies de mamieros, 400 de aves, 120 de anfibios y reptiles y 3000 especies de plantas llegue en Costa Rica diez y ocho de Abril. La familia en Costa Rica esta bien. Es un familia muy simpatico. Hablo mucho espanol en Costa Rica, Por que los personas en Costa Rica hablan espanol. hoy visitar el bosque nuboso Monteverde. Prefiero se llama el bosque tropical, no selva.

pura vida!

Los siento professores espanol Senor Hodsdon's espanol no es bueno!

I look forward to you cloud forest questions tomorrow, I have spent the last two days there and even went on a night hike there last night! Check out the pictures. Sorry I can't answer all the comments, I have little free time. Thank Mr. Dunleavy for tracking that down.

19:40 by : ¡Hay muchas preguntas para mis estudiantes españoles! necesito mas tiempo para condestar las preguntas. gracias

19:40 by : Wow great questions, let me try to answer all of them, but do it so I answer similar questions together. In terms of the mountain, AreNAL MEAns a lot of sand. This is because the active side of the volcano looks sandy. Before 1968, no one knew it was a volcano! Then with little warning there was a huge eruption that buried 2 towns and killed 400 people, the other major eruption was 1992. The Volcano is besically erupting all the time with magma and pyroclastic flow coming down the mountain. Luckily since it is a subductionm volcano these flows move slowly so I watched it erupt from a mile away. Again it was very calmly erupting, but you could see giant boulders of hardened magma tubling down the side. To the people around, the mountain is a gold mine. It brings in tourists and their money, the surrounding areas are very prosperous because the tour guides are all local people and the businesses thrive. THe volcanic soil creates great farmland as well. Cattle graze and crops grow where there used to be lava flowing. In terms of the plants and animals, plants such as grasses, mosses and ferns arrive very quickly by there seeds carried by birdss and animals and then dropping them on the land. THe decomposing plants then create soil so other plants can grow and support an animal population. THe area from 1968 you would never know there had been an eruption there. This whole thing is called succession and it is good for the new plants and animals that can grow, but it is unclear if its good for the whole ecosystem. The same thing happens when companies clear cut land for lumber. It is amazing how life bounces back, but after the eruption, nothing survives. I have some rock samples but there are many pumice type rocks and other igneous rocks. The hot springs there do not smell, but they do feel good about 100 degrees. Arenal by the way is about 5,000 feet tall. Or about the height of one of the larger White Mountains. Thanks for the questions, see you soon!!!!!

19:40 by : I look forward to your questions, I was gone all day. I spent the morning at the arenal volcano learning all I could to answer your questions, I also ate a termite, look for the pictures! Tonight we went on a canopy tour by zip line The highest zipline was 600 ft above the valley floor. We traveled at about 40mph. Wow! and I don't like hieghts.

19:40 by : Check out www.costaricateach.org for a video of Mr. Hodsdon interviewing a Costa Rican sixth grader!

19:40 by : Thanks for all the Red Sox updates, tonight I actually caught part of the game in spanish! It sounds like this "dghdhlkñl{ñ Dustin Pedroia sgkj.ñgs<l." Anyway, something is going on with downloading my pictures so you will have to wait to see the howler monkeys and many iguanas I saw today. Definitely the most interesting thing I have done so far is I spent the night with a Costa Rican family. They live way out in the mountains and run a sustainable agriculture cacoa farm. We went through the whole process of making chocolate from planting seedling trees, to harvesting the fruit, to extracting the se