For teachers
Tropical Field Research Program
We anticipate two teachers will be associated with the program. Seeds of Change Inc. will pay all of your expenses associated with your high school science group's trip. There should be a lead teacher and a second teacher/chaperone. One teacher is covered by every 8 students. The first trip is viewed as a trial for your high school. If the trip is a success and meets its’ objectives, we wish to make this an annual trip with your high school students. This means that we would plan to take 16 students each year.
Pre-Trip Classes
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As the school’s sponsoring teachers, we look to you to teach the five pre-trip classes plus a pre-trip meeting with students and parents, usually consisting of one class per month for about 60 minutes. In addition, we look to you to be the program spokesperson in your high school and the focal point for collecting the student’s payment checks as per their schedule. We do not expect you to be involved with any fundraising (e.g., selling Costa Rican coffee). Seeds of Change will manage that part of this program with parent volunteers from your school group.
In late February, Seeds of Change will send you enough pre-trip workbooks for each student and chaperone. with curriculum for 5 pre-trip class modules. The workbook that includes background information, research articles and activities that prepare them for the Costa Rica research program. You can choose which pretrip activities are best for your student group.
Travel Oversight
Seeds of Change will also look to you to take responsibility for oversight of student travel to/from Costa Rica. Once the students reach Costa Rica, we will meet your group at the airport, go to a local restaurant for lunch, and then transport you to the SOC research site. That trip will take about 1-1/2 hours driving from the Liberia airport to the tropical rainforest on the north slope of the Rincon Volcano.
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Research Immersion Program
Once at the research site our scientists will take over the science component of this program and our on-site coordination team will be responsible for off-site activities. However, we look to the teachers to ensure that your group of students is on time for each activity, on or off-site, and that you manage/monitor their social, emotional and physical health during the program. You are responsible for enforcing lights out, for example.
We would like each teacher to monitor all the experiments being done and to participate to the degree you think seems logical. Generally we will ask that you step back initially, to allow the instruction team to bond with your students. They are amazing mentors!
Instagram for Family Communication
We look to you to coordinate and manage the daily communication with families. We've found the best way is to make an Instagram account with the prefix (SOCresearch_[schoolname]). That naming convention makes it easy to find and helpful to SOC when we send out Instagram posts that you can share with your cohort. It's a good idea to use a new, unique email that you could transfer to another group leader from your school in future years.
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Each day you can ask two students to generate that day's post(s) - They can be short video interviews or whatever this new generation is into that you approve prior to posting.
Presentations
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On the eighth day of the trip, the students will present the results of their projects to the group and instructors. These presentations should also be given back at your school to parents and friends, school administration, board members, and other students. We would like you to assume responsibility for making this happen. Some prefer doing so almost immediately upon return to take advantage of the students' excitement about the program they just finished.
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Pacific Coast
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​​After project presentations we will eat lunch and then immediately transition to the Pacific coast about 2 1/2 hours away. Our goal is to arrive in time for a pre-dinner monitored swim in the ocean. The next day we will do a surfing lesson in the morning and a sea turtle workshop at a hatchery run by a local marine conservation NGO.
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Return Travel
On the tenth day of the trip, all will return home. The flight back to the U.S. usually departs at midday. The last responsibility you have is to help manage packing up so students are ready/on time for the trip to the airport.
Teacher Compensation
Seeds of Change covers the participating teacher’s costs associated with these science research trips. We realize that if this program is made an annual program at a school, the ongoing effort of these lead teachers must have compensation in order to maintain viability. It will require the two teachers to dedicate 1 to 1-1/2 hours once a month for six months preceding the trip and it will take 10 days out of their summer break. Seeds of Change will provide a modest stipend for lead teachers who help us carry out this program after the first year’s trip. Stipends are typically distributed around Thanksgiving each year.