In March of 2003, founding PIRT member Kathryn Levenson took twelve of her students on a life-changing adventure. They travelled to Costa Rica where they worked to help protect Leatherback turtles from poachers, carried out research projects, reforested former rainforest, and birded with the best of them. They spent a day with their contemporaries at a public school in Puerto Limon, exchanging research and playing basketball. The students finished with a wet and wild rafting trip down the Class IV Pacuare River.

The research program we joined is in its fifth year under the aegis of Ecology Project International. It takes high school groups to Costa Rica and the Galapagos to help with sea turtle research. It is directed by Scott Pankrantz, a young visionary, with a lively staff of young people. Our guide Susie is a former ski instructor from Colorado and graduate student in Biology. Her sidekick Maria is a sweet, soft-spoken guatemateca with a background in Natural History. Maybeck High School students chose this as their Special Program for the year, for which they received academic and community service credit.

Our areas of study were the Pacuare Nature Reserve, north of Puerto Limon, on the Caribbean coast. We had close contact with the leatherback sea turtles on 3 to 6 hour night patrols along the beach and saw crocodiles, eyelash vipers, spider monkeys and white face capuchin within a km. of our camp. Our next stay was at Selva Bananito, rated the 9th place ecotourism lodge in the world by OUTSIDE magazine in 2003. It is private land bordering the World Heritage Amistad Biosphere Reserve, stretching from Costa Rica into Panama. We birded with Victor, seeing over 34 species in two hours. He and I sighted two rare White-tailed Hawks not recorded before at that locale.

"Sometimes we, as parents, see our kids have life-changing experiences ...ones that make them a better person in some way. Your trip was that for J___. He had great
fun and tremendous growth. Saw the world differently, and saw himself in a new way in the world. I can't thank you enough." These are the kinds of experiences we should search out for young people we know. The children of today will be the guardians of our Earth tomorrow.