Group+4

=Country Name: Costa Rica=

Group Members: Corey, James, and Kyler
media type="custom" key="319399" Please visit [|Our Voicethread] and add your comments on our presentation! If you've visited Costa Rica or know someone who lives there who might comment on our work, we'd love to hear from you!

Social Groups
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People with an African background live mostly in the //provincia// of Limon, which contains all of 7 percent of Costa Rica's total population. They are the descendants of workers brought from the West Indies most of them speak both Spanish and a Jamaican style of English, the majority being descended from people who came from that island. There is also a good number of Chinese people, many of which are the descendants of imported labourers. The following is the ethnicity percentage of Costa Rica: white people (including mestizos) is 94%, black’s are 3%, Amerindian 1%, Chinese is 1%, and other 1%. All of these percentages are always changing, but the one that stands out the most is the percentage of white folk. A long time ago there wouldn’t be any white people living there.

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-40879/

Language
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If you're not from Costa Rica and you don't know how to speak Spanish, it wouldn’t be very good for you to not understand Costa Rican sayings and language because it is very complex, you will think that someone is saying something but they are really saying something completely different. Although, a lot of people living in the capital, San Jose, speak some English, but not a lot. People who live in Costa Rica don’t speak the same kind of Spanish that's spoken in Spain. The people in Spain lisp their c's and z's, while Costa Ricans don’t. The Spanish in Costa Rica is just as unique as any other, and it's full of "Tiquismos" or in other words, cool sayings. Costa Ricans are sometimes called “Ticos” because of their accent. Ticos also use tons of terms of endearment, which is an expression of affection, a lot of times they are misinterpreted as mean nicknames, when they aren’t. For instance, it's likely for Ticos to call people "flaco" (thin one) or "gordo" (fat one) without intending any offense at all. People of other races are usually called by their race, as in "chino" (chinese) or "negro" (black one). Kind of like English. These are just some of the ways that the Costa Rican Spanish is just as unique, important, and interesting, as all of the other types of Spanish. Costa Rican’s are productive because of their language. Costa Rican people have always had a sense of pride for their country, and have a great reputation for being friendly. http://www.infocostarica.com/culture/language.html

Religion
www1.istockphoto.com/ file_thumbview_approve/4.. Costa Rica is known for having the biggest percentage of Spanish citizens in the entire region of Central America. The Meseta Central, contains a little more than half of the population of the country, it is the largest Spanish and contains the most ancient Spanish artifacts and sights. The population of Guanacaste //provincia//, which covers about 8 percent of the country's total, is mixed up of colonial Spanish, Indian, and African people. About 90 percent of Costa Rican's are Roman Catholics. Roman Catholicism is the most known and official religion of the country, and it is also receives a part of the national income. In other words, some of the money that the country makes is used for the religion. The majority of the rest of the population is Protestant, most of who live in the Limón province. There is in fact a small Jewish congregation that lies in San José.

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-40879/Costa-Rica

**Art**
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Costa Rican’s love to attend films, the also love enjoying movies from other countries. They listen to a wide variety of music, they here most of their music from the many radio stations in the country. They need these radio stations because they don’t have a lot of other ways of communicating and listing to music. Although citizens of the Meseta Central could attend the National Theatre, where the music played and the drama performed usually comes from any part of the world. This theatre is known all throughout the country. Costa Ricans are very interest in their pre-Columbian art, which includes large statues from the Pacific Northwest; they are also interested in some work that is done in the form of small objects of gold. Samples of all these may be seen in the national museum. This is also known throughout the country. Pristine, old, colonial architecture is extremely hard to find, the most known example is a 17th-century mission in Orosí. Cartago's, a famous builder, older buildings, destroyed by earthquakes, have been in the process of being restored; new ones like them have also been built. The fine arts have always been outstanding in Costa Rican history, but they have received some minor help from government support, particularly, in 1970 because of the Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sports, that have been founded. Painting, sculpting, and music all showed amazing development in end of the 20th century. Particular pride was taken in the growth of the National Symphony Orchestra since 1971. [|]

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-40891/Costa-Rica

Daily Life
www.vacationcity.com/ images/stock/information... The Costa Rica costume for women is a long, full, and colorful skirt decorated with ribbons on the hem. The main accessory that accompanies the traditional clothing from Costa Rica for women is a flower over one ear. http://www.vacationcity.com/costa-rica/culture/clothing/

http://www.bugbog.com/images/galleries/costa_rica_pictures/costa_rica_pictures.jpg

Because there is a large population of Hispanic people living in Costa Rica that effects their daily life and what Costa Rican’s do. This manly affects the food that Costa Ricans eat. Some food examples that the average Costa Rican may eat is carne (a type of beef), pollo (also know as chicken), and pescado (fish). Beef and steaks are surprisingly inexpensive so more Costa Rican’s can afford to eat steak on a regular basis.Costa Rica is a country with a high percentage of literate people : the country is proud of having 93% literacy in the past 10 years, Costa Rica has the most literate population in all of Central America. Many of the country’s early founders, for example, the first president, Jose Maria Castro, were former teachers who were very concerned about the education in Costa Rica because the literacy rate was slowly decreasing. http://www.globalgourmet.com/destinations/costarica/costcuis.html http://www.infocostarica.com/education/education.html
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[[image:costaricacaves.jpg width="182" height="136"]]
www.arenal.net/ tour/venado-caves.htm

The Caves of Venado are located just south of the city of La Fortuna. The Caves of Venado are a direct result of water currents passing through the limestone rocks about 7 million years ago. These caves are so deep that absolutely no light gets into them. The height of the tunnels change a lot some of the ceilings are nearly 20 feet in height while others are very tough to slide through. Within the caves there are five thousand year old rock formations. The “papaya” is a vertical rock made up of 2 different rock types. These caves are shut down during the rainy seasons because of the water flowing through it. The Caves of Venado are amazing.

Geographic areas - Costa Rica is divided into four geographic areas, the tropical lowlands on the Pacific and Caribbean coasts, the North Central plains, the Central valley, and the Northwest peninsula. The lowlands area covers a lot of the northern part of the country, and the jagged rivers flowing down from the highlands. Here there are scattered hills, but mostly flat plains. These plains go from the north up to the Caribbean coast and are about 1/5 of Costa Rica’s total land area. Tropical rain forests and beautiful beaches line both the Caribbean and Pacific coasts. The Pacific coast has many mountains, peninsulas and scattered narrow beaches, while the Caribbean is mostly flat.

http://www.worldheadquarters.com/cr/caves/

http://jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu/fieldcourses01/MarineEcologyArticles/Final-LandformsGeologyand.html

Water Forms
www.hot-tropics.com/.../ costa-rica-sunset.jpg

http://school.eb.com/comptons/art-51397/Waterfalls-cascade-through-the-lush-rainforest-of-the-Rara-Avis?&articleTypeId=31

Costa Rica has many amazing waterforms. The beaches in Costa Rica are awesome. The coastline stretches over 1100 miles. Costa Rica has rocky shores and also has sandy beaches. There are golden sand beaches, gray sand beaches, black sand beaches, and some pink sand beaches. There are 10 major rivers in Costa Rica. The Colorado River, the Corobici river, the Orosi river, the Pacuare river, the Reventazon river, the Sarapiqui river, the Tamarindo river, the Tarcoles river, the Tempisque river, and the Tenorio river. Costa Rica has great waterfalls too. Three of the best are the La Fortuna waterfall, the La Paz waterfall, and the Rio Celeste waterfall, they are incredible sights.

http://www.govisitcostarica.com/travelInfo/beaches.asp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Rivers_of_Costa_Rica http://www.costaricauncovered.com/pictures-waterfalls.htm

Climate
[|] http://www.destination360.com/central-america/central-america-map.php

Costa Rica is fairly close to the equator. Although in the mountains above 2000 meters you get very cool temperatures, the average annual temperature for most of the country lies between 71°F and 81°F. The coolest months are from November through January, and the warmest from March through May. San José, the capital, stands at approximately 1170 meters altitude and has an annual temperature of 69°F! The nation's climate is classically divided into two major seasons, rainy and dry. The dry season runs from January through May and the rainy season runs from May to December. Rainfall patterns are seasonal, but it is intense across some geographic areas. Some locations receive over 18 ft of precipitation per year, while others receive under 4 ft. Most of the total rainfall for any given site, about 70%, occurs on less than 15 days of a whole year, and will often be experienced as days of downpour! Costa Rica may hold the world record for the amount of rainy days at one site.

http://www.worldheadquarters.com/cr/climate/

Animals
www.danheller.com/.../ Animals/ugh-01-big.jpg volcanorentals.com/ images/toucano.jpg

Costa Rica has a wide variety of tropical birds, insects, and reptiles such as snakes and iguanas.Costa Rica contains over 200 different species of hummingbirds are located in Costa Rica, and it is home to over 850 different bird species. Also Costa Rica has over 5,000 different kinds of grasshoppers, 160 known amphibians, and 220 known reptiles! Costa Rica also has many monkeys there are 4 major species of monkey in Costa Rica, the cebus monkey, the spider monkey, the squirrel monkey, and the howler monkey. The Jesus Christ Lizard is one of the coolest animals in Costa Rica. The reason that it is called the Jesus Christ Lizard is because it can really walk on water, it can even run on water! Another lizard in Costa Rica is the Gecko. The Gecko can climb up anything with the sticky pads on their feet. They love to hunt mosquitos, which is the reason why people like them so much.

http://www.costarica-homeschool.com/cw/iguanasandlizards.html http://www.highrock.com/CostaRica2000/animal_life.html

Current Events
Nothing much is happening right now in Costa Rica, but I will tell you about some of the things that have happened in the few months. There have been many crimes around the country of Costa Rica, the last few years. Like the one on October 16, a group of men brought guns into a bank and stole a lot of money. There is a very small police force, so there arent many armed guards at banks to stop people from trying to rob them. Also, on July 28, three people were held hostage and then were killed by the hostage taker, he also was killed. The main events in Costa Rica are violent robbings and other crimes. The bad thing is that it is hard to prevent them because there are so few policemen in Costa Rica. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/costarica/index.html?offset=30&s=newest

Government
The Republic of Costa Rica has a government in the form of a democracy. In the year 1949, Costa Rica wrote it’s constitution, and their government is similar to the one we have here in the Untied States. Their citizens are guaranteed equality before the law and the freedom of speech, press, petition, and assembly. They have a president, two vice presidents, and a cabinet. The government has three branches executive, legislative, and judicial. Every four years, Costa Ricans have an election for a new president. Just like in the United States, Costa Rica’s presidents can only serve two full terms before having to end their presidency. http://centralamerica.com/cr/info/

Economy
Economy Costa Rica’s economy is traditonal and consists mainly of agricultural products. These products include Bananas, pineapples, coffee, melons, sugar, and beef. Tourism and industry are two other main parts of the economy. Costa Rica exports goods like textiles, electronics, and medical equipment, but things like petroleum, raw materials, consumer goods, and capital equipment have to be imported.Costa Rica was one of the first countries in Middle America to have railroads, this helped a lot with shipping goods and transporting. Many “High tech,” companies are starting to move to Costa Rica and this is helping to expand the economy. Although the economy is rapidly growing, there is still great deal of underemployment in Costa Rica.

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0857592.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Costa_Rica http://school.eb.com/all/comptons/article-230795?query=costa%20rica&ct=

History
In 1502, Columbus explored the amazing country of Costa Rica. It was inhabited by about 400,000 Indians when Columbus first explored it, but in 1524 The Spanish conquest began. Over time, the region slowly grew and was admitted as a Spanish province. In 1821, Costa Rica gained it’s independence from Spain, but was still being ruled by the Mexican empire. In 1823 Costa Rica experianced a brief civil warI. 1848, Costa Rica became a republic. And in 1949 the country of Costa Rica wrote their constitution, and became a democracy. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107430.html http://centralamerica.com/cr/info/

Six (6) Photos
http://www.map-of-costa-rica.com/

[|http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bc/Flag_of_Costa_Rica_(state).svg/500px-Flag_of_Costa_Rica_(state).svg.png] http://www.costaricatalkradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/costa-rica-escudo.gif http://www.allanbantick.net/wildlife/Costa%20Rica%20Jan%202004.html http://www.costaricaguides.com/gallery_.html Bibliography Bibliography Bibliography Voicethread Story WorkspaceVoicethread Story Workspace