Week 3

We started this week with adjusting our previous final presentation PowerPoint to reflect the changes as well as preparing a new presentation for the U.S. Forest Service on Wednesday morning. The team also worked on adjusting our introduction, background, abstract, and newsletter to reflect the changes to the project. There was also research conducted on the soils and weather of El Yunque. On Tuesday, the team worked on the agroforestry assessment in the morning and submitted the revised introduction with a cover letter. In the afternoon, the team rode out to the rain forest for easy pickup in the morning. The evening was spent practicing the presentation for the following morning.

Following the meeting at the U.S. Forest Service where there was not enough time for us to present, the team was driven back to San Juan, formulating agendas for three meetings the next day. The team met with Carmen Santiago, a soil scientist at the Natural Resource Conservation Service, a division of the USDA. Pedro was also in attendance, the team meeting personally with him after. The meeting with Carmen was very helpful and in depth about the soil conditions in El Yunque and the different tools available online. We were also able to set up a meeting with her plant specialist, Edwin Mas, where he will teach the team conservation practices. Background edits continued this day as well as the following day, Friday.

On Sunday, the team visited Mercado Organico in Hato Rey, an organic market sponsored by a local farmer cooperative. The team was able to talk to several vendors, the president of the cooperative, a PhD student doing research in the markets of Puerto Rico, and the coordinator for the cooperative who set up a phone conference with us to discuss our project more in depth the following week.