<p>My wife and I have always discussed how our lives would have been different if we had discovered certain occupations BEFORE we went off to college. We just had no clue about some things that we probably would have enjoyed as careers. One thing that we've participated in over the years is with Earthwatch teams. My wife and I explored caves in Romania (that led to several life-long friendships and repeat visits back), she studied octopuses through the Bermuda Biological Station for Research, and she and our son also tracked and monitored the behavior of lemurs in the mountainous rain forests of Madagascar. These were incredible experiences. Yes, they were expensive, but I was thinking that they were no more expensive than some of the pre-college programs we send our kids to in the summer, and certainly cheap compared to a semester's tuition. I noticed that Earthwatch now has Teen Expeditions for 16 and 17 year old kids. These look very interesting: Teen</a> Teams - Earthwatch </p>
<p>Anyone else on CC with Earthwatch experience?</p>
<p>My son went on an Earthwatch expedition in the Australian rainforest, the summer before college. It didn’t change his life, but convinced his best friend, who went with him, that she would major in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Which she did. Much of the expense is tax deductible, BTW.</p>
I doubt it. I’d be suspicious if this were the OP’s first or second post, and it was posted in multiple sections and threads. Generally people don’t build up to that kind of promotion with over 1000 posts, and finally spring it on their 1088th post.</p>
<p>Earthwatch has been around a very long time. I wouldn’t worry about this.</p>
<p>We took our kids to Tanzania when they were 14 and 15. Did that ever change their perspective! When my son was told about the Maasai manhood rituals…</p>
<p>**Digmedia **is a long-term excellent poster who has shared MANY experiences, including references to these travels, before. I have zero suspicion that this topic is meant to be promotional, and am quite confident of his sincerity.</p>
<p>thats ok dmd- I can use my imagination :eek:!</p>
<p>My kids had pretty cool trips through their schools- older D went to Costa Rica to do immersion Spanish, and sea turtle rescue- then in senior year, she went on a three week hike through the Canyonlands.
Younger D went to Hawaii in 8th grade, on a high school marine biology trip for a couple weeks, on shorter Marine Bio trips in high school and on a three week trip to Ghana senior year.</p>
<p>I agree that hands on experiential trips are a intense way to carve off bits to get closer to your own core. Reading about it, just isn’t the same.</p>
<p>I participated in a program called Amigos de las Americas. It was in its infancy when I participated-back in the early 70’s it primarily provided vaccinations and health related service projects like building latrines. My first day of arrival I took out a machete in a man’s head, and sewed it up-I was 16 years old. The man had been attacked because of the upcoming elections, and he was a leader in the opposing party. That summer I learned more about myself and people than ever before. I participated in the program for 2 more summers thereafter.
Mind you…my mom was not too keen on me going back—but I earned my own money to participate, and I knew I would be OK :)</p>
<p>Earthwatch is a phenomenal program. Some of the programs are expensive…but the programs through the highly competitive student fellowship program are FREE. Several kids from D1’s school were accepted to the fellowship program last year, and raved about it. A handful of kids in her class are semifinalists for this year’s fellowships.</p>
<p>One of my friends did this the last two summers with her son, who is now a HS senior. One summer they did research on seals off of Alaska; last summer they did research on elephants (or lions? I can’t remember) in Africa. The trips were for a couple of weeks. Sounds fascinating…</p>
<p>First of all, it <em>does</em> sound like a shameless promotion!</p>
<p>I had that feeling when I wrote the post that it would come across that way, and for that I apologize. I have nothing to do with the organization. But there is so much discussion about student programs on this forum, I thought that I’d bring up one that I was familiar with.</p>
<p>Earthwatch is a charitable organization, as far as the IRS is concerned. It funds research projects around the world. The way it funds those projects is by finding volunteers who wish to provide help (labor) with those projects. The money you give supports the research you participate in. It is NOT a vacation trip. You will be put to work gathering data, tracking animals, whatever…</p>
<p>So all of the money you give to Earthwatch is a donation (supporting both the research itself and the overhead Earthwatch extracts), and is deductible.</p>
<p>And, travel to the site for you is also deductible.</p>
<p>The caveat about the “Family Teams” is because those are more educational trips than work on research. If the whole family goes on an actual expedition trip, all of that should be refundable.</p>
<p>My daughter had the opportunity to participate in an Earthwatch expedition last summer through their Student Challenge Award Program. As another poster mentioned, the entire experience was free, including airfare. Students must be nominated by a teacher. Grades, essay, and recommendations are required. This was all due by midwinter, winners were chosen in the spring. The SCAP participants are sent in small groups to work with professional research teams (often led by college professors who have recieved grants from Earthwatch to conduct their research). An Earthwatch coordinator also attends, but there are no paying particiapants on these teams. The students do not get to select their trips, but do get to indicate their area of interest, level of physical fitness, willingness to go out of the country, dates available for travel, etc.
This was a fantastic experience for my daughter, who studied petroglyphs and Native American culture in Washington state. They matched her interest in Anthropology perfectly. She spent about a week in the field and then several days in a college lab, and worked with Native American Anthropologists and an archeology team. There were 8 SCAP award winners from around the country and Alaska. There were also 4 college graduate students on the team, which was led by a college professor.
I learned of this opportunity by researching free summer programs for gifted students on the web. We printed out the forms and she asked a teacher to nominate her. Most of the students selected (about 90 total) were rising seniors, although her team of 8 had one rising junior and one student who was entering college in the fall.</p>