The fictional universe created by the late author Michael Crichton around Jurassic Park has developed into a very popular, highly successful and extremely lucrative industry. Films, novels, video games, comic books, and merchandising have been generating millions of dollars for the Jurassic Park universe, which Mr. Crichton specifically placed in Isla Nublar, which is based in a mixture ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Warning signs along the Tarcoles River near the Central Pacific coast of Costa Rica will soon advice residents and tourists about the presence of potentially dangerous caimans.   The warning signs specifically prohibit feeding the reptiles, which many people see as an act of good faith, but is in fact a danger to humans. In a recent interview with Radio Col...

  Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs The new ambassadors of India, Shamma Jain; the Vatican, Nuncio Antonio Arcari; Turkey, Ali Findik; Armenia, Grigor Hovhannissian; and Germany, Ingo Winkelmann, recently presented their diplomatic credentials to President Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera of Costa Rica.   The President received the diplomats in the Golden Hall of the Casa Amari...

  The Whales and Dolphins Festival was a great success this year, and cetacean sightings in the Southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica will continue through October. As you can see from this video recently uploaded by kind blogger Capi, the season has thus far provided plenty of whale spotting opportunities.   http://youtu.be/ybm6VAZsCaI    ...

  Source: iCafe Are you a coffee lover in Costa Rica? If your answer is yes, you may want to rush to La Sabana Metropolitan Park in the lovable city of San Jose before 1:00 pm today and enjoy the best coffee our dedicated farmers and roasters have to offer. September 12th is the day we celebrate National Coffee Day, and everyone is invited to enjoy our best beans and learn more about w...

Source: Bing commercial reuse With more than 70,000 visitors attending the 15th International Book Fair in San Jose, organizers and exhibitors were certainly pleased to see that reading is still capturing the interest of many people in Costa Rica. For the second year in a row, the International Book Fair expanded its presence beyond the Antigua Aduana (Old Customs Building), and held activitie...

Source: ASOTU Costa Rica One of the most family-friendly and fun-filled festivals in Costa Rica is happening again in just a few days. The 6th Whales and Dolphins Festival in Ballena Bay will star this Friday, September 5th. Although whale watching season in Costa Rica runs from July until October, the peak month for migration is September. Some of the activities that visitors to the Osa Penin...

Dear Readers: It has been more than two years since The Costa Rica Star published The Costa Rica Dome and Phytoplankton Treasures, an article that highlighted the importance of the Thermal Convection Dome off our Pacific Coast. Of all the natural wonders of our country, it is crucial that we understand the organisms that the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) calls ...

A project is tested in competition. Source: MICITT On August 17th, the Fifth National Robotics Olympiad of Costa Rica culminated with an awards ceremony and the announcement of the young robotic scientists who will represent our country at the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) in Russia later this year. The theme of this year's robotics competition was Space Exploration, and the winning projects feat...

Part of the Roulin family portraits by Van Gogh. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Despite recent national initiatives to curb the incidence of single motherhood in Costa Rica, this socioeconomic trend continues to be a significant issue. According to a recent report by CB24, a regional cable television news network that focuses on Central American matters, single mothers make up 3...

In a college atmosphere, the Youth and Politics Presidential Forum was attended by approximately 1000 people in the amphitheater of the University of Costa Rica (UCR) campus in Liberia on Wednesday, November 6. The activity was attended by presidential candidates Jose Maria Villalta of the Broad Front (FA- Frente Amplio) party, Jose Miguel Corrales, New Homeland (PN- Patria Nueva) and Luis Guil...

Heading out on a school trip to Costa Rica? What you bring with you, from your attitude to the items in your suitcase, is one of the most important aspects of Costa Rica Student Tours. But to really make the most of your trip, go beyond a standard packing list, and check out our recommendations for the 10 things you must pack for your Costa Rican expedition! 1. Questions! There is a whole W...

If you would like The Costa Rica Star to publish your business press release, please contact us. El Castillo, COSTA RICA – September 26 – Rancho Margot, innovator and educator in sustainable community development, permaculture and self-sufficiency, continues to build on a holistic lifestyle approach and will host two, 200-Hour Yoga Teacher Trainings (YTT) at its Center for Natural Living in 201...

Source: Flickr Creative Commons People in Costa Rica have equal access to education, but one gender has learned to take better advantage of this civil right. One of the goals behind Costa Rica's new country branding campaign is to showcase the high level of education of her people insofar as Latin America is concerned. Costa Rica has a significant edge when it comes to funding public educat...

Today is Día del Niño (Children's Day) here in Costa Rica and I had the chance to celebrate with the kids, parents and teacher from the Escuela de Playa Hermosa Guanacaste in Carrillo. The Playa Hermosa School is a small school with 25 students in grades 1 through 7. It's quite literally a "one room schoolhouse" run tightly and passionately by it's headmaster (maestro) and teacher, Mr. Javier Rosa...

An interview with native Costa Rican Tica & AGU Academic Consultant Ania Chaves about university life in Costa Rica, courtesy of ISA Association of Global Universities. Filled with exotic wildlife and damp rainforests perfectly preserved by a government who has sectioned off over a fourth of the country’s land mass to nature preserves and national parks, Costa Rica is truly a unique study desti...

The high school students of Home School Beach Academy (HSBA) in Nosara raised $900 to help electrocuted monkeys as part of a school project. After learning more about the problem, they decided to organize a Stop the Shocks race on Saturday morning, August 17 on Guiones Beach to raise funds for Nosara Wildlife Refuge and to raise awareness of the problem that monkeys face due to uninsulated powe...

National Liberation Party Presidential candidate Johnny Araya floated a controversial plan to eliminate the much hated “bachillerato” test requirement for those who do not intend to go on to higher education. Those who opt out of the test would receive certificates showing they had completed high school. The first big educational reform in a quarter century is bound to create a firestorm of ...

On July 23, the formal and official ceremony was held by the Central Government to initiate the construction of the building for the Public Library of Nicoya. The construction begins in late August and will hopefully be ready by January of 2014. Construction cost is 235 million colones ($470,000), of which 200 million ($400,000) will be donated by the National Library System (Sinabi) of the...

Students at Technical Professional High School (CTP) in Nicoya will be getting more hands-on experience thanks to a new interchange agreement signed between the school and CASATUR, the chamber of tourism in Samara. Students began working at different hotels in Samara in July. “Of all of the opportunities that one has to keep working after the internship, we have an 80 to 90 percent chance ...

UCR campus Costa Rica's prized quality of life in the Central American region owes a lot to her focus on education. Since there is no military to spend money on, Costa Rica has had an opportunity to invest a greater portion of the national budget on academic affairs -particularly at the higher education level. As such, the number of colleges and universities in Costa Rica has increased along w...

Liberia, Costa Rica – June 21st 2013: Wilkes University students arrived in Costa Rica on Monday, June 17th for a summer Ecotourism Development class, led by Dr. Andy Miller. They met up their in-country and host and coordinator, R.A.W. Tours, on Tuesday to begin their work at the Museo de Guanacaste (Guanacaste Museum). Their efforts at the museum will focus on: assisting in the creation of co...

Nicoyans came out by the dozens to celebrate, together with teachers, students and stakeholders, the inauguration of a new library for the city this past Thursday November 15th. Song and speech kicked off the plan to create a new library, steps away from the municipality office in Nicoya, and to bring new tools, resources, and information-gathering capabilities to the people of Nicoya and the s...

Costa Rica is quickly becoming one of Central America's hubs for all things design. There are a growing number of design education initiatives that have seemed to gain some momentum in the past few years by the local creative community. This year, Costa Rican designers have launched a national sketching workshop in their home country. They call it Sketching Lab Costa Rica. It's a 3-day, int...

One appealing aspect of moving to a place where you don't speak the language is you no longer have to hear anything stupid. Living in New York City, where strangers rub elbows and ears together, means that you are constantly overhearing cell phone conversations, 90 percent of which constitute of "I dunno, where do you feel like eating?" and what passes for bon mots on the subway ("No azzhole, ...

University students in Costa Rica and Athens can learn about sustainability — while learning from the same professors. Beginning in the spring of 2013, the UGA Costa Rica study abroad campus has a new program option: the Sustainability in Action semester, which offers a new sustainability certificate awaiting approval and collaboration between professors in both Costa Rica and Athens. Th...

PersonalizedSpanish.com now offers the option to study from your home or office with on line dynamic lessons via Skype. This option is perfect if you cannot, or do not have time to travel to Costa Rica in order to attend an immersion program, or if you are one of our former students and want to continue improving your Spanish skills. Classes are one on one with a program personalized to...

I live in the Zaragoza region, one of the poorest areas in central El Salvador. We have limited economic development opportunities for our people, yet one of the highest rates of population density in the country. While grappling with poverty, our municipality must also deal with gang activity and school violence. In order to respond to this situation, my school joined with 12 other schoo...

Waking up to howler monkeys greeting the morning, hiking past colorfully plumed toucans flying through the trees and looking out for poisonous vipers winding through the forest, Natalie Teale, a senior Earth sciences and geography major in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences, spent the summer as part of an immersive research experience in the cloud forest of Costa Rica. Teale wa...

Boston-area authors escape city life for taste of pura vida lifestyle in new book. A travelogue with a guidebook twist, Two Weeks in Costa Rica entices and educates readers. Cambridge, Massachusetts – Well known as a slice of paradise, Costa Rica has more to offer than just sun and adventure. Matthew Houde and Jennifer Turnbull should know; they have been drawn back to this tropical dest...

The Board of Nutritionists of Costa Rica has threatened Home Economics high school teachers with lawsuits if they dare defy a new pilot program that favors the teaching of personal finance instead of cooking and household chores. According to a news report by Ana Amenabar of Diario Extra, the Association of Secondary School Teachers (APSE in Spanish) has filed an emergency motion for relief before...

Alton Biggs and his wife Louise recently traveled more than 2,000 miles to point out the behavior of monkeys and various other Central America animals for a group of teachers and friends. Among the 17 participants in the trip to Costa Rica were biology teachers, a nurse, an editor and one of Mr. Biggs’s previous students. This was Mr. and Mrs. Biggs’s second trip to the Central American coun...

Over the next seven years, 120 students -many of them from Sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world in need of careful and strategic development- will be the recipients of a scholarship program designed by the MasterCard Foundation and EARTH University. The students will learn subjects crucial to their communities, such as sustainable agriculture, natural resource management and communi...

JACO BEACH, March 9th, 2012 – Super Thinking + Spanish teacher John Sloan will be in Jaco Costa Rica from March 25th to the 28th for Learn Spanish in Four Days training for those who want to increase their Spanish language comprehension. Spanish is the second-fastest growing language in the world, according to the official language institute Royal Spanish Academy (known as RAE by its Spanish a...

Expats have a lot to say! And they aren’t afraid to write it down. It seems that lot of people who have moved to Costa Rica are frustrated writers who want to share what they have to say. Blogs abound, posts to bulletin boards are sometimes prolific and informative, and long letters to friends and family are common. Some people write informative pieces, others simply record the every day ev...