By Bozeman Chronicle Staff
A group of high school students from Costa Rica along with Montana teens will be working with scientists on conservation projects in Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding ecosystem this month.
The program, run by the U.S. Forest Service Gardiner District through Missoula-based Ecology Project International, will give students a chance to work in the field with biologists and researchers.
EPI links scientists and students in ecologically fragile environments around the world, with the goal of helping young people understand the ecological ties between animals, plants, landscapes and people, according to Kelsey Stamm, EPI’s grants and outreach coordinator. This is the first time EPI has brought students from Latin America to Yellowstone.
“For Costa Rica students, this is the first time they have been able to travel abroad and discover animals and plants very different from those in their tropical rainforests,” Stamm wrote in a prepared statement. “Most of these students come from rural towns and have limited chances to travel, due to lack of financial means.
“This is also a rare opportunity to learn outside the classroom. Most students (in Costa Rica) learn entirely from copying information from a board, during a teacher’s lecture, or directly from a textbook,” Stamm wrote.
They’ll be joined by students from Gardiner and Cooke City.
“Montana students realize that their backyard is actually pretty unique, and by learning more about the ecology of the area and seeing how their international peers are excited by it, become connected to the land and animals in a way they never have before,” Stamm wrote. “This motivates them to consider their impacts where they live.”
Out in the field, the students’ days will be filled with projects that include monitoring bears and wolves, measuring aspen and whitebark pine trees and building and repairing wolverine traps, according to a prepared statement from EPI. Students will also pitch in at the Sun Ranch Institute in the Madison Valley, removing fence to restore migration corridors for elk and other wildlife.
For more information, visit www.ecologyproject.org.
