We made it to EARTH! This week we were at EARTH University in Costa Rica, which is a four-year undergraduate program where students from around the world go to study agricultural sciences and natural resources management. We did so much this week. We visited the food processing lab and learned how they transformed their products into food. We learned about the “invisible water” which is the water used to make a product. We did an exercise to analyze how much water is used to produce cotton t-shirts and beef (there is so much water involved) and also learned about the different types of water damage it does to the environment. We also examined our ecological footprint or impact and discovered how big they are and what we can do to minimize them. Mine is 14 soccer fields (so big). Another day we went to the landfill to learn about wastes and how to separate them in order to compost. The landfill wasn’t actually disgusting, it was clean and didn’t smell bad. It was really interesting to learn about that and the different ways there is to compost the waste.
Our 5th day at EARTH was my favorite. We learned about Farm to Table to Farm and it was so interesting how much we did. They taught us how they take their products from the farm, process them in order to consume them, and then compost them to use them again in the farm. I really enjoyed it because we were learning by doing. And that’s the whole reason I came to this gap year, to learn hands-on instead of in a classroom. We planted pineapples and yucca, we learned how to harvest plantain, we harvested papaya, basil, mustard, lettuce, and spring onion. We also germinated different seeds, and planted the seeds into a sausage plant (which is a type of planting used when there isn’t enough space so they just hang it from the ceiling) and washed and processed the lettuce and mustard we harvested.
Another day we went out of campus to a local family’s house and learned how to preserve hearts of palm (which I still don’t know what it is, they said they sometimes eat it on salads). Each of us made a jar-full of hearts of palm and took them with us. The family was so nice, they had little chickens in their house and let us play with them (they were so cute). We also went to another local family’s house that produces goat milk. There they taught us how to make yogurt, cheese, and ice cream from goat milk and how much milk each one requires. The family was so nice, they even let us milk goats! It was such a weird experience milking goats and definitely harder than expected. The house is powered by renewable energy that the father made. It was so impressive how he discovered how to power up his entire house with the use of water and a biodigester. The last day we met with the head of cafeteria of the university and he taught us how he gets the food and how he does the menu for the entire university. I found that really interesting and useful as it was one of the steps of the farm to table to farm.
I had a great time at EARTH. I learned a lot about where food comes from and how the food in the U.S. differentiates from other countries like C.R. Everything at the university was organic and local, they produced almost everything they ate. EARTH University is definitely a great school and I really enjoyed the hands-on learning they offered. The students learn by doing and take what they learn back to their countries and communities. EARTH University was a great contribution to the itinerary because it tied together all I learned about farming in the past months.
