Day 8, 22 July

Today began with attempted early rising, but many of us over slept following last night's late "science-ing" session.  After breakfast the real work began.  A few groups had last minute data collection to complete and we spent all morning preparing for our final presentations.  Everyone was incredibly tired this morning and anxious to wrap up our work and celebrate.  We cleaned the lab, finalized our data, ran statistical tests and completed our presentation boards. At 11:30 the stage was set and we shared all of our hard work with the group.  Even though some groups' data did not support their hypotheses with statistical significance we all learned quite a bit about what it takes to complete a real scientific field study.  Following the presentations we ate a late lunch at 1:00.  After lunch we said goodbye and took some final group pictures with one of our advisers, Dr. Adrian Pinto.

 This afternoon's fun activity was a trip to a pool and hot springs where we celebrated our accomplishment and relaxed in the warm water.  After many days of exhausting our brains the relaxation was much needed. Before dinner most of our group stopped in town to stock up on some caffeine and candy as we will be leaving for the coast tomorrow morning after breakfast.  As always there were a few pre-dinner card games followed by another delicious Finca la Anita meal. After dinner we have been finalizing our lab notebooks and doing some final cleaning.  Finca la Anita has been a great home for us these past eight days and we will definitely be sad to say goodbye. We are all enjoying our time here and are sad to see it passing so quickly, but many of us our anxious to see our friends and family upon our return.  Now we are off to pack for our adventures on the coast.

Erin Gilbertson and Leah Johnson :)