Each month we’re bringing you a progress report from our Geoporter program. The following is a report from our first Geoporter, Amy Work, about the work she has been doing in Costa Rica…
Since August of 2012, I have been living and working in Bahia Ballena, Costa Rica teaching and training educators, youth and community members how to use geospatial technologies, or GIS and GPS, to investigate their community resources or issues they think are important. I want to take just a few minutes to summarize some of the incredible Geoporter activities taking place here in this wonderful community that have occurred in the past month. There are so many things, but I’ll try to keep it short…
***We were in the news again!*** I am so proud that the hard work this community is doing is getting recognized. Below is an excerpt from the article. Be sure to click through to read the entire piece.
“Monitoring project garbage is led by the Association of Tour Operators and Guides Association Marino Ballena National Park with support from the organization Geoporter , which is dedicated to teaching about the use of GPS.
Thanks to the monitoring guides and tour operators realized that there are many plastics, food packaging, glass, metal and aluminum cans.Moreover, they detected a site dominated by cigarette butts. A cigarette butt can contaminate two liters of water for toxic materials are released.
The map of waste allowed to see the areas where you need to place more trash cans.”In every place, there is one for recycling and one for trash,” said Amy Work, Geoporter instructor. “The idea is not that we spend a lifetime picking up trash but come to the moment when the street is clean and you see the pretty village where people responsible for their own trash, “said tour guide, Luz Badilla.”