Lessons From The Rain Forest ... Wisconsin Family's Move to Costa Rica Spawns Education Web Site
Four years ago this September, Maggie and Steve Jacobus dropped everything, sold their house in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin and packed their three sons for a one-way trip to Costa Rica.
Leaving Milwaukee and everything familiar: Scary.
Educating your children about the world: Priceless.
Tierra Magnifica Vacation Resort - Nosara, Nicoya Peninsula, Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica
"The American dream is to give your child a 'better life,' " Maggie Jacobus said. "For most people, that has had a more materialistic meaning. We wanted to give them the world. We wanted them to understand and be able to move easily in other cultures, which you need language to do."
In return, the boys - Ryan, now 14, Michael, 12, and Will, 11 - earned bragging rights to stories their former neighbors can only imagine, like the one about the night a monkey ran into their living room and hid behind the couch.
They didn't just get exotic stories from the move. They're also the stars of their own online nature series, "Super Natural Adventures." The Web series, which they started filming four months after moving to Costa Rica, is available at www.SuperNaturalAdventures.com.
www.SuperNaturalAdventures.com
Each boy has a role in educating viewers about different features of the rain forest. For example: Ryan shares what he learned about bats.
"The first time my family visited Costa Rica, I was only 7 years old, and I totally loved it," Ryan said in his SNA biography. "One of coolest things I did on that trip was stay up until, like, 1 in the morning with my mom netting bats and working with some scientists to study them. I couldn't believe I was 7 and working with scientists!"
Michael shows viewers where chocolate comes from and rivals Rachael Ray with his presence and charm. Will goes on a sloth search with a professional guide and finds one.
At last count, the videos had viewership from more than 70 countries, said Maggie Jacobus, 44, who has a master's degree in broadcast journalism and started the project as a shared lesson with her boys. She began marketing SNA to schools last year.
Maggie said she had always taken advantage of Milwaukee's educational resources, from the Betty Brinn Children's Museum to the Milwaukee County Zoo. But when she saw how excited Ryan became during a first-grade unit on the rain forest, it felt like permission for them to experience it.
12-day trip planted seed
The family took their first trip to Costa Rica in 2002, a 12-day adventure over the Christmas and New Year's holidays.
"That really planted the seed," she said. "I want to live like this with my family. I want to learn like this. I want to interact this way as much as possible.
"This was no light decision to be made," said Maggie, who sold her public relations company before she left. Steve, 46, also sold his business, the Olson Co., before the move.
"We scouted around," Maggie said. "We had criteria for what we wanted, which was to be in a nature-rich area. We wanted a community that was aware of the environment. We loved the idea of living on the Pacific coast."
They landed in rural Nosara.
"It's not Haiti, but it's certainly not Whitefish Bay," she said. "A lot of the kids couldn't afford shoes to go to school. But what was beautiful about the experience is that our kids were A, young enough, and B, open enough. They noticed it, but it wasn't a barrier."
Obviously there were some apprehensions. No one spoke Spanish fluently. On that first day of school, Maggie remembers feeling as if she just left her kids off in the middle of the jungle.
"We dropped them off," she said. "Steve and I got in the pickup truck, and I burst into tears: 'Oh, my God, what have we done to our children?' "
Friends skeptical at first
Back home, friends were surprised by the family's move.
"We thought they were just crazy," said Eric Jorgensen of Delafield. "How would they leave what they have in Milwaukee, what they know, and take their kids and put them in a full-immersion, Spanish-speaking school?"
Jorgensen, who knew Steve from business, changed his mind after he, his wife and their three daughters visited not long after the family moved to Nosara. The poverty was striking, but the residents seemed not to notice. It was a valuable lesson, he said.
"You go down there and say, 'Boy, this really makes sense,' " said Jorgensen, who has been back to Costa Rica since.
From the beginning, the Jacobus family knew they wanted to share their experiences, whether it was learning to surf or frog hunting. Jacobus calls it her "no child left inside" rule. As the Web site took shape last year, teachers took notice.
"It's a fun unit," said Jacki Carapella, who teaches kindergarten in Glen Ellyn, Ill. A student in her class brought the site to her attention, and Carapella put it to work.
"It's very, very kid-friendly, and it was dead silent in the room watching it," she said. "You know then that you've got them captured."
Toren Anderson met the Jacobuses at an Atlanta expo on green living last year. Anderson, who lives just outside Atlanta, hires tutors to teach her children at home but was intrigued by Maggie, Steve and "Super Natural Adventures."
"SNA" appeals as much to her 17-year-old as it does to her 8-year-old, Anderson said.
"It's been six weeks now, and we just love it," she said about "Super Natural Adventures." "We do it for creative writing. I have the children watch, and then we ask them to write about what they learned from it."
She was inspired by the series to assign her children to write an international cookbook.
"I just love the little boy that makes cocoa," she said about the episode in which Michael explains how chocolate is grown, harvested and turned into powder. "I could just eat him up."
The videos are a snapshot into the family's daily life, so the boys aren't self-conscious about it.
"I don't feel so much like a teacher," Ryan said. "I just like nature. I like talking about it."
Family opens a retreat
The episodes begin in Nosara in 2005, which is where Steve and Maggie opened an executive retreat resort called Tierra Magnifica. The couple joke privately that it's a little like "Fantasy Island," in that people think they're going on vacation when "some sort of momentous shift happens to them."
Then, a decision. When Ryan was approaching high school age, he wanted more challenges from school. The family had to choose together between moving back to the United States or finding another solution.
"We take a vote on everything," Jacobus said, laughing. "I find it cuts down on the whining."
A move to the capital
They moved to Costa Rica's capital, San Jose. Steve commutes from the capital to the resort in Nosara by puddle jumper, a 40-minute flight, or by car, which takes 4½ hours on a good day.
Some of the SNA episodes now include classmates of the boys, such as last year's three-day educational field trip to northern Costa Rica with Will's fifth-grade class to learn more about the rain forest, paper recycling, mammals, crocodiles and a native tribe, the Malekus.
"Mrs. Jacobus proposed to include my class in a 'Super Natural Adventures' video project," Sairy Sanchez wrote in an e-mail. Sanchez was Will's teacher last year and has Michael in class this term.
"As a teacher, I was really happy to participate in this experience with my students. I felt they had a unique experience that they will never forget," Sanchez wrote. "The videos that they have produced are very useful in the classroom environment because they are made about things that the students are naturally interested in."
Trips back home
The Jacobus boys come back to northern Wisconsin every year for summer camp, and their visit this year, which included a stop in Milwaukee with their parents, felt like culture shock reversed. The brothers say they sometimes speak English and Spanish in the same sentence.
"Living there is more interesting. There's always something new to look at," Ryan said during his Milwaukee visit. "I thought about it on the plane. I'm leaving the jungle and going into the pine forest."
To their mother, the transition worked out smoother than expected.
"I had thought perhaps after seven weeks of being in the states with family and friends, our boys might not be excited about coming back here," Maggie recently e-mailed from home. "But they continually surprise me with their sense of adventure and their enthusiasm for our particular adventure as a family. They couldn't wait to get back - and start school! - which is how this experience has been able to continue for FOUR YEARS.
"Every time I think the kids might start whining, they don't. Instead, they inspire me, which is pretty cool as a parent to experience."
Jacobus Family - Nosara, Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica
source: sjonline.com
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