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Earthwatch Trip Is Dream Come True

Photo by Sandy Clark

Nancy McClelland looks for caterpillars in vines while on an Earthwatch Institute expedition to Costa Rica.

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: February 16, 2008

It took 25 years, but Nancy McClelland's dream finally came true. The Safety Harbor resident joined an Earthwatch expedition in late December and early January.

She had wanted to go on such an expedition since she heard of Earthwatch 25 years ago.

With their emphasis on learning, Earthwatch trips seem ideal for people like McClelland, whose eyes shine when recounting some of the trips she has taken on her own.

"When I travel, I really like to learn things," she noted.

According to its Web site, the Earthwatch Institute, based in Maynard, Mass., is a nonprofit organization offering volunteers a chance to do just that by joining research teams around the world. About 4,000 volunteers annually collect data on subjects ranging from archeology to science.

The cost of the expeditions held McClelland back. But through a grant from the National Geographic Education Foundation, McClelland finally got her chance.

The grant funded the entire cost of participating in 11 days of research on caterpillars in Costa Rica in December and January.

In return, McClelland, who is an elementary school teacher, was required to share her experience with students. She set up her own blog giving a daily account of her experiences. While on the trip, she connected with a class in Massachusetts through computer teleconferencing and uploading pictures and videos.

McClelland teaches reading and language acquisition to kindergartners and first-graders in the English for Speakers of Other Languages program at High Point Elementary School, in Clearwater. She was unable to teach her own students during the trip because they were on vacation then.

Her blog included scientific facts, such as noting there are 180,000 described caterpillar species, with more to be discovered.

It also described elements in the environment, including the "cacophony of howler monkeys" that she heard during her field work. Ever the good teacher, McClelland pointed out the howlers were the biggest and most abundant of Costa Rica's four species of monkeys.

She divided her time between the La Selva Biological Station and Tirimbina Rain Forest Center, both in tropical rain forests in Costa Rica.

McClelland was one of a team made up of nine volunteers, four researchers and a head scientist, Professor Lee Dyer, of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at Tulane University.

Volunteers collected caterpillars and recorded data for researchers to study the ways caterpillars protect themselves against parasites and predators.

Such research might ultimately be helpful in using parasites, rather than insecticides, to control the caterpillars that have voracious appetites and devour Costa Rican crops, McClelland notes.

Team members roamed the rain forests, putting each caterpillar they found into a plastic bag with its food source and a label with details about the location in which it was found. When the caterpillars made their cocoons, they recorded, details about time and place.

The research will go into data Dyer collected during 12 years of international field work.

The blog and live classes provided the greatest worry for the conscientious McClelland.

She remembered one free day when all the other participants went white water rafting. "I stayed on my bunk bed, and I worked on my blog."

The team stayed on site in rooms for researchers.

The woman who loves birds and plants felt grateful to be a part of a team exploring nature's richness.

"You could be in just one spot and soak in the majesty of every part of that system. You could just be absorbed in the majesty of nature."

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