Let’s go live La Pura Vida!

(which means ‘the pure life’ in spanish)

Before you start…

You’ll need some printed worksheets to complete this workbook. Start by clicking the button below and printing out the sheets.

Get a grown up to help you if you need it.

MAKE SURE TO CHECK ‘FIT TO PAGE’ WHEN YOU PRINT

When you’ve printed out the worksheets and got a pen or pencil, then scroll down to the begin the activities.

Not sure how the workbook works? Click the button below…

Here’s a bigger map…

You can click on the purple circles to learn more - it might help you later!

Activity 1: First Questions

There are lots of interesting things to learn about Costa Rica! Can you answer the questions in this quiz?

Remember, try not to guess but actually do some research to find out the answers - ask your parents, or look on the Internet to find the answers!

The answer for the Answer Grid is the most Southern city in Costa Rica ⭐

Activity 3: The mysterious Diquís stones

Costa Rica was invaded by the Spanish in 1491. We don’t know very much about what Costa Rica was like before the Spanish arrived, because many of the indigenous people died - either killed by the Spanish or dying of diseases that the Spanish brought. 

One mystery which isn’t properly explained are the Diquís Stones. They are very round stones of different sizes all across Costa Rica.

The stones are named after a group of people who lived in Costa Rica when the Spanish arrived.

These stones were carried to a new place and then carved by humans. Large rocks were chipped into rough stone shapes and then polished to be smooth, using smaller stones.

It must have taken the Diquís people a long, long time. No one is quite sure what the stones were used for - maybe people prayed to them, or maybe they were placed in lines leading to a chieftain’s hut. Maybe they were decoration.

Diquís stones can be found all around Costa Rica, although lots of them have been moved from where they were originally.

Take a look at the picture below. Each Diquís stone is labelled with a letter. But because the stones have been moved around, the letters are muddled up. Can you rearrange the letters to make a word?

When you’ve worked out the word take a look at page 4 of the worksheets. There’s a question there to answer about the word ⭐.

The Costa Rican Army

(doesn’t exist)

Costa Rica is an interesting country because it doesn’t have an army or a military (military means army, navy, air force and other fighting groups combined). Very few countries have no military, and most of them are small islands.

Here are a few countries which don’t have a military. Below we’ll learn more about why Costa Rica decided to get rid of their army.

Activity 4: Abolishing the Costa Rican army

Through this activity you will find different graphs showing facts about armies, governments and spending. After each graph there are  questions for you to answer, about what the graph represents.

You can fill in the answers on pages 6 & 7 of the workbooks. One of them has a star ⭐.

Lots of countries spend lots of money on their militaries. Here you can see how much 5 different countries spend on their military: 

• Which country spends the second highest amount of money on their army (on this list)?

• How much more money does China spend on its army than India? 

• TRUE or FALSE: The U.S.A. spends more money on its army than all the other countries on the list combined. 

When Costa Rica decided to get rid of their military, they didn’t have to spend money on it anymore.

That means that the Costa Rican government can spend more money on other things like schools and hospitals. Spending money on these things means that everyday life for Costa Rican people gets better. 

In fact, Costa Rica has spent so much money on education that Costa Rican people are very well educated - 97% of the population can read.

Here’s an infographic showing how well Costa Rica’s neighbours can read, as a comparison…

• Which Central American country has the worst literacy rate?

• Excluding Costa Rica, which country has the best literacy rate?

Other countries don’t spend as much of their money on education or healthcare. Let’s take a look at how different countries spend their money…

• Which countries does this graph talk about? 

• Which country spends the most money on defence (which means the military)?

• What does Brazil spend most of its money on? 

• What does Costa Rica spend the smallest amount of money on? 

Another reason that Costa Rica got rid of its army was because they want to be a country of peace, not war.

Before Costa Rica abolished the military there were several wars in which people died.

Here’s a timeline of different wars, with a graph showing how many people died in them…

• How many wars have happened in Costa Rica since it became a country? 

• In which war did the most people die?

• When did Costa Rica become a country? 

• How many people have been killed in wars since the Costa Rican military was abolished? 

Nicaragua tried to invade Costa Rica in 1955.

The Nicaraguan government thought this would be easy, as Costa Rica didn’t have an army. However, Costa Rica talked to the Organization of American States (also called OAS), a big organization like the European Union or the United Nations. The OAS told Nicaragua off and the Nicaraguan President took the soldiers away. There was no fighting and Costa Rica showed that it didn’t need to have an army. 

One of the reasons that Costa Rica doesn’t need to have an army is because it is protected by the OAS and by other countries around the world. 

If you were the leader of your country, would you get rid of the army? Why not ask your parents or your teacher what they think?

What is biodiversity?

Here’s a little video about why biodiversity is so important… 

A good example of monoculture is a modern farm. Farms often grow only one type of plant, like corn, or own only one type of animal, like cows. 

Monoculture is easier for farmers, but it can be bad for the environment. Plants and animals are more open to disease, and there is more chance that the soil and environment will become sick as well. 

Here’s a little video about monoculture - both the good things and the bad things…

Activity 5: Monoculture vs. Biodiversity

Costa Rica is known for having a lot of biodiversity - it has hundreds of thousands of different plants, thousands of different types of animals and millions and millions of different insects. 

But there are farms in Costa Rica which use monoculture, particularly ones which grow bananas or pineapples. These farms can be very destructive to the local wildlife and plant life.

Luckily Costa Rica also has lots of National Parks and forest reserves which help to protect the jungles and mountains and preserve the biodiversity which lives there. 

Take a look at pages 7 & 8 of your worksheets. There are some matching sentences about either biodiversity or monoculture. Can you work out which sentences match each other, and which ones belong in the monoculture column and which belong in the biodiversity column? 

There’s space on page 9 of your workbooks for the answers. You’ll find a star there ⭐

Activity 6: Animals of Costa Rica

Costa Rica has a lot of animals. There are big cats like jaguars, amphibians like lizards and frogs, mammals in the sea like whales and dolphins and on the land like monkeys and sloths, plus millions of insects. 

There are so many animals in Costa Rica that we can’t tell you about all of them, so we’ll just tell you about our favourite - the sloth.

Here are some crazy facts about sloths: 

• Sloths are incredibly strong - they can hang onto a tree even if a jaguar is trying to pull them down!

• Sloths are mostly blind, especially in sunlight

• Sloths only poop once a week - they climb down from their trees especially. 

• Sloths are very good swimmers, even though it’s hard for them to walk fast. 

• Sloths are descended from giant sloths, which were over 6ft tall!

• Sloths can fall 100ft to the ground and still be OK - that’s the height of 12 double decker buses!

Below is a list of different animals you can find in Costa Rica. Some of them you will have heard of, but others you might not have.

All of them fit into the 6 basic categories of animal - mammals, amphibians, invertebrates, birds, fish and reptiles. 

The animals are:

Take a look at pages 10 & 11 of your worksheets. Can you figure out which animal fits into which category? Some will be easy, but some you’ll have to do some research for. 

(we’ve split the mammals into a few smaller groups because there are so many of them!)

There’s a question on the worksheets - the answer goes in the Answer Grid ⭐

Activity 7: A day in the life of a Park Ranger

Imagine you’re a Park Ranger for the Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio. Here’s a map of the park:

(Start from the Central Ranger Station)

Take a look at the clipboard on pages 12 & 13 of the worksheets. It will tell you about your tasks for the day.

But because it’s your first day there’s also a test to make sure you understand all the tasks. Read through the clipboard on pages 12 & 13, then see if you can answer the questions on page 14.

You’ll need to use the map to help you. 

One of the questions has a star ⭐

Congratulations!

You’ve reached the end. You should have 7 answers now. You can write them all in the Answer Grid to reveal the vertical word.

Have you heard of this before? If not, look it up on Google and find some pictures!

Do you want to check your answers?

Click the button below which says ‘I have the answer’. It will ask you to put in a password. The password is the vertical woord in the Answer Grid.

Make sure to write it all as one word, and without capital letters, like this:

thisistheanswer

If you’ve got the answer right, you’ll go through to another page!

Having trouble with the answers? Go back and check each activity carefully. Remember, you’re looking for the answer with the star next to it.

If you’re really stuck, you can check the answers by clicking the Answers Page button. But only do this if you’re really stuck!