Amazon
The Bug I Shouldn’t Have Killed
One smashed bug. One gasp around the table. What came next became a documentary. by Josh Ault, Journalism Teacher, Spring Woods High School, Houston, TX As an educator, I always…
Read MoreUnderstory Surprises: Insect Richness in a Rainforest Vertical Study
What happens when you look for biodiversity on both the forest floor and in the rainforest canopy? During the Amazon Research Initiative for Educators (ARIE), educators and researchers used simple fruit-baited traps at the Amazon Conservatory of Tropical Studies (ACTS) in Peru to explore …
Read MoreDifferent Year, Different Fish: Tracking Change in Amazon Floodplain Streams
Fish communities in the Peruvian Amazon floodplain experience strong seasonal and interannual variability driven by annual flood pulses. To examine how these dynamics influence local assemblages, Morpho researchers sampled fishes
Read MoreLearning by Doing: Educators Build a Long-Term Orchid Bee Inventory
[ARIE 2025] This summer, teachers became researchers at the ACTS Field Station, continuing a long-term inventory of orchid bee diversity. By documenting species richness and distribution from the forest floor to the canopy, they gathered data that will support future monitoring of environmental change.
Read MoreWhat Makes a Morpho Field Program Exceptional?
What Makes a Morpho Field Program Exceptional? 1. Deep Immersion in a Biodiversity Hotspot Morpho’s professional development programs in the Amazon place you in the heart of one of the…
Read MoreWhen Was the Last Time Professional Development Changed Your Life?
When Was the Last Time Professional Development Changed Your Life? A new Morpho impact survey has the answers! Summary: Professional development is often measured in hours—but what if it could…
Read MoreJaguar spotted by 3rd graders – pandemonium ensues
Guest Blog by Dr. Ben Olsen, Cedar Falls Schools, Iowa Did I just lose control of my classroom?? If someone had walked past my classroom one cool, crisp day in…
Read MoreAre Amazon forests ghosting us?
[From the Director] As we watch the rapid disappearance of forests around the world, it’s hard to ignore the growing phenomenon of “ghost forests”—areas once humming with biodiversity, now falling…
Read MoreTiger Beetles on the Move: Teachers Develop New Monitoring Protocol
[ARIE 2024] Our teacher research team conducted the first study of tiger beetles in the Napo-Sucusari Biological Reserve in northeastern Peru. They used mark-recapture methods to estimate their population size, applying a technique called the Lincoln-Petersen Index. They also tagged beetles to track their movements using GPS and looked for mites that attach to them. These mites could help us learn more about how the beetles age and when different sexes and species emerge.
Read MoreLife After the Fall: Teachers Explore Tropical Forest Canopy Gaps
[ARIE 2023] In this long-term study, teacher researchers are tracking how a forest changes over time after a tree falls and creates an opening in the canopy. We’re looking at how the types and numbers of plants and animals in the area shift as the forest naturally grows and develops. The study is designed to help us better understand how communities of plants and animals change over time and how life cycles are affected.
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