Education
Understory 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 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 MoreWhat if We Start with AWE? Designing Classrooms for Transformation.
By Rosanna Ruiz, EdD, Morpho Institute, Board President Unlearning to Learn: How Awe Clears the Way for Deeper Learning What if one of the most powerful tools in education isn’t…
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 MoreLizards on the Edge: Teachers Investigate Predation Risk
[ARIE 2023] Tropical forests are like three-dimensional environments, with each layer offering different conditions and opportunities for the animals living there. For smaller animals, like lizards, moving from the forest floor to the canopy is a big shift, with changes in things like light, temperature, shelter, food, and even interactions with other species. In this study, teachers looked at how lizards behave as they move through different parts of the forest. They focused on whether their risk of being preyed upon changes from the forest floor to the canopy, and how they might adapt to the different levels of danger they face in each area.
Read MoreTeachers as Researchers: Heliconia Survey
[ARIE 2023] Heliconia plants are not well documented in this part of Peru, and there is still a lot to learn about their flowering patterns, leaf growth, and the insects that feed on them. The aim of this project was to start a detailed study of Heliconia in this region, locate and map Heliconia colonies near the ACTS field station, track when they flower and produce new leaves, and document the types of beetles living in the curled leaves and flower clusters.
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