Research with focus on Costa Rica

Dennis Wilke (Department of Geography) started his stay with various meetings to exchange ideas and prepare for the upcoming field phase. From February to March, he conducted interviews with 28 ASADAs in coastal and mountainous regions of the cantons of Hojancha, Nicoya, Santa Cruz and Carrillo, with a wide range of experiences. Particularly revealing were reports on institutional hurdles that make it difficult to take rapid action to secure the water supply in emergency situations. He also took part in the final event of the CRLiveDiverse project to present the results of his project and was involved in the organization of the major excursion for geography didactics. Together with 20 students, they dealt intensively with the potential and challenges of ecotourism approaches during the excursion.

Thanks to funding from the Sievert Foundation for Science and Culture, it was possible to finance part of the trip.

The activity is part of a book project on the natural and cultural landscapes of Costa Rica of the Department of Biology Didactics. In November and December 2024, Adolfo Quesada-Roman was involved in the project with the creation of GIS maps. He is a geographer from the Universidad de Costa Rica and his participation was motivated by the interest to contribute to the development of thematic maps for a book on the ecology of Costa Rica with German authors, integrating relevant information for the understanding of the main ecosystems in Costa Rica and their relationship with global systems.

His collaboration was funded by the Sievert Foundation for Science and Culture.

In October 2024, Prof. Kunze from the Department of Education and Cultural Studies was in Costa Rica to take part in working meetings and academic events at the UCR and UNA.
These included her lecture at the Instituto de Investigación en Educación (INIE) of the UCR which highlighted points of contact with human rights education as a central topic at schools and universities. The visit offered a variety of opportunities to build on previous joint research activities on human rights education in the context of teacher training. In various discussions with active and retired academics and students, she was able to delve deeper into issues relating to studies, teacher training and developments in the school system and public life in Costa Rica.

The trip was sponsored by the Sievert Foundation for Science and Culture.

The aim of the project is to explain the difference in the buying and selling price of the Costa Rican colon vis-à-vis the US dollar. A central obstacle in the initial phase was the procurement of data and the institutional interpretation of the data due to several structural breaks in the time series. After an initial phase of data research and analysis, Prof. Westermann made a research visit to Costa Rica in September. Discussions with various colleagues took place in San Jose and were particularly important for the institutional context of the analysis. In addition to the project idea, other forms of cooperation, such as a possible student exchange and lecturer exchange, were also discussed. The project itself is still in its initial phase.

Thanks to funding from the Sievert Foundation for Science and Culture, the trip and the work of the student assistant in Osnabrück could be financed.

From March to June 2024, Sebastian Holt had the opportunity to support various final theses on the topic of “Ecosystems of Costa Rica”. The focus was on advice on the design and implementation of illustrations as well as support in literature research and the creation, selection and optimization of illustrations and photographs of six different ecosystems. This activity enabled him to deepen his knowledge of the literature on Costa Rica's nature and at the same time contribute to the academic development of the final-year students.

His work as a student assistant was funded by the Sievert Foundation for Culture and Science.

The stay in Dota and Turrialba in spring 2024 was part of the cooperation project “sCoRe”, which is carried out by the Department of Work and Organizational Psychology of the UOS, the UNCR and Orlando Bruno as representative of the producer network Turri Creadores de Origen and the UOS.
Several coordination meetings were held to familiarize the students with the operational framework of the project and to carry out meta-reflection phases for the joint exchange of experiences. During this time, the objectives and tasks were also explained to the local coordinators and students and project management software was introduced. Daily/weekly meetings with the students/coordinators were held to monitor the progress of the project.

The trip was sponsored by the Sievert Foundation for Science and Culture.

At the beginning of 2024, Shirin Betzler and Lena Schmeiduch (Industrial and Organizational Psychology) were in Costa Rica for a research stay as part of the cooperation project “sCoRe: Sustainable Communities through Rural Entrepreneurs”. After the kick-off of the students' stay as part of the project, a week each followed in Dota and Turrialba to network the participating students, introduce them to the specific conditions of the regions, intensify contacts with important stakeholders and ensure a successful start to the students' work in Costa Rica. In addition, they were able to use their stay to gain important experience with the processes and structures of their project that had been established over the past few months.

The trip was sponsored by the Sievert Foundation for Science and Culture.