What Makes This Course Different
Most rainforest curricula are encyclopedias — big taxonomies of animals and plants, memorized and forgotten. This one is a way of seeing. Each chapter gives you one mental frame — one lens — so that when you're standing on the riverbank at kilometer 14 with a guest who has asked why the tree she's looking at is covered in vines, you can answer in a way that stays with her for the rest of her life.
A naturalist is not someone who knows every species. A naturalist is someone who notices.
Listen or read
Every chapter narrates aloud in English or Spanish, so you can study on the shuttle with your eyes closed.
Quiz every chapter
Four questions at the end of each chapter, with feedback that teaches rather than just marking you wrong.
Fully bilingual
Complete English and Spanish text, not a summary of one in the other. Switch language any time.
Part 1 — Arriving
Part 2 — The Forest Itself
Part 3 — Plants and Their Partners
Part 4 — The Insect World
Part 5 — Animals of the Pacuare
Part 6 — The Long View
This course is a study guide adapted for POC guides from Adrian Forsyth & Ken Miyata, “Tropical Nature: Life and Death in the Rain Forests of Central and South America” (Touchstone, 1984). Chapter summaries, field practices and quizzes are original material written for Pacuare Outdoor Center. Where the 1984 science has since been revised, the chapters teach the current understanding. The book itself remains the best thing a guide here can read.