When Emily Beardmore first heard that a trip was being planned by the biology class at Windsor High School, she thought about how much fun it would be. "I thought it would be a really good experience to go with other friends and teachers to another country in an environment other than a vacation environment," the 17-year-old girl said. A few months later, Emily got her chance when she and 14 of her classmates, along with biology teacher Tamara Pennington went to Costa Rica for eight days in late May. "It was not just a tour," said Pennington, who organized the trip. "You can go any place in the world on just a tour. This one was really working with the sea turtles   and practicing conservation . It just seemed like the perfect science field trip for kids who think they want to get into science to see what it's really like to be out in the field and enjoy themselves." Emily said her time on the turtle program, which was the focus of the trip, was "crazy." "We were walking on the beach at night and you can't see anything--just see a big black dot." She said with a laugh. "I was not expecting the turtles to be that big." The turtles are leatherback turtles, which are becoming extinct   because their eggs are used as food. "When they would move their legs while laying their eggs they were really hard to control because they were a lot more powerful than you would imagine," Emily said. Once the eggs were collected, the students took them back to a hatchery  and dug holes to copy the hole the mother turtle had made and then buried the eggs for the 60 days needed to hatch. "The experience was so cool," Emily said. "You go to another country to see what their culture is like and learn what their everyday lives are like. It made me really want to help out my mom a lot more than I do, and value what I have." What did Emily learn from her experience?
She learned to be grateful to her teachers. She understood the importance of what she had. She realized the beauty of foreign culture. She knew the importance of everyday life