Hello  everybody,  strangers and friends ;)

I’m a Guatemalan girl, currently finishing my Biology studies at Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, and I just want to share with you guys that I’m having a BLAST at this Atitlán course :)

I’ve been learning a lot from all the experts, and I’m particularly excited about having world phytoplankton authorities giving us valuable lectures about the ecology and taxonomy of this organisms (wich I’m very interested in). So far, I’ve been learning the field techniques for collecting phytoplankton, zooplankton, and water quality samples. We measured some chemical parameters in the field, and then took the samples back to the hotel, were we’ve been filtering them, to take them to the Universidad del Valle laboratory for further chemical analysis. In the afternoon, we will be learning from the experts to identify phytoplankton and zooplankton, and I'm REALLY excited about that… What a geek, right? But don’t take me wrong, I’m also looking forward to go sampling for macroinvertebrates and macrophytes, and to learn all about their ecology and how their communities are affected by all the human activity going on around Lake Atitlán. We’re also gonna be learning  how to use macrophytes, like Eichornia, to help bio-remediate the lake, and hope to teach the local communities  to use this plant not only to help keeping the lake clean, but also to use the Eichornia as a source of food for their horses.

About the lectures that we had last week, I just can tell you that I’ve learned A LOT, not only from the experts, but also from the students of other careers. It is very interesting to see how environmental engeneers, biologists and aquaculturists tend to analyze the same ‘problem’ in different ways, wich I think is very important, because reality is just like that: it has to be analized from different perspectives in order to be better understood, and that’s why it's so important to work in multidisciplinary groups when dealing with a problem such as what is actually occurring at Lake Atitlán (wich is going through a euthrophization process righ now). I also didn’t know much about invertebrate ecology, but the more I learn, the more I’m interested in that subject also. It’s a shame though, that you should always specialize in a specific field when you’re a Biologist, isn’t it? :)

Ok guys, I have to go work on my project now, but we’ll keep in touch :)






Walda Salazar
Biology student 
Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala