Junior Scientists Restoring Brazil's Rainforest

Well if you didn't believe in climate change, just take our word for it!  We had no rain in February which is the height of our rainy season, and now it's May and well into the dry season, and it's been raining every day. But apart from a few adventures with atrociously muddy roads, the Junior Scientists have been hard at work under the direction of Marquinhos and Sergio. They've been courageously wading into the (comparatively) chilly waters of the rivers to continue the program of water monitoring, learning about the soils in the forest nursery under the watchful eye of Toni, and tracking the oddities of the weather by collecting data from our weather station.

Last Monday was a red letter day when we hooked up a video link with a school in Portland Oregon for the first of what we hope will be several global conversations! Isn't globalization wonderful? The Portland kids have a Portuguese speaking teacher, so it didn't take long to get the conversation flowing, and the Junior Scientists were able to show them our scientific equipment  which was generously donated by Vernier Software from - you've guessed it - Portland Oregon! No, the school connection didn't come from Vernier, although we're going to tell them about it. It arose from a meeting that Project Leader Binka made when she herself was in Portland, earlier in the year.

Junior Scientists was also featured in the April Newsletter of Global Giving UK, as well as the spring newsletter put out by Vernier, and even though our Junior Scientists film wasn't actually nominated for the Oscars, we're pretty sure it must have been an oversight. 

So thank you supporters, thank you Global Giving, and thank you to our heroic bus drivers. We couldn't do it without you!  

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