Jennifer Cournia
Fair trade and organic coffee farming is the topic as a Jesuit High School mathematics and science teacher is on a large-scale research and environmental expedition in Costa Rica this week.
Jennifer Cournia, a 1997 Jesuit graduate, is in Coope Tarrazú, a farming cooperative located in the small town of San Marcos de Tarrazú.
Cournia is conducting research on coffee farms, meeting local farmers, visiting a local coffee processing plant owned by the cooperative, participating in an official coffee tasting and learning about issues affecting fair trade and organic coffees.
“As a teacher, I am particularly interested in the relationship between environmental sustainability and cultures and people,” says Cournia, who was a highly-honored University of Portland graduate who won a Fulbright fellowship. “The research on this project will not only improve the treatment of the land on which coffee is grown in Terrazú, but will also help local farmers better understand the environmental impacts of their actions and achieve higher quality coffee and higher yield crops, resulting in greater incomes.”
The goal of the project undertaken by Cournia is to understand the practices that lead to more sustainable production of coffee and result in higher quality and yield. Cournia and other volunteers will gather information at 40 coffee farms in the Costa Rican cooperative by sampling coffee plants and obtaining data on important features of the landscape like shade trees and water sources. They will use a Global Positioning System unit.
The data will help build a visual representation of the landscape to allow scientists, cooperative managers and farmers to make comparisons and draw conclusions about how to manage the land sustainably.
“How often do we think about where coffee comes from and how it is grown, harvested and transported?” Cournia asks. “This expedition is an excellent opportunity to delve deeper into the world of coffee that we take for granted. I don’t think most people realize that the pesticides used in producing some coffee are harming entire communities of people, not to mention the environment.”
Cournia intends to take the lessons she learns in the coffee fields back to the classroom this fall to prompt an “educated discussion about sustainable land management.”
The expedition is part of an Earthwatch Institute’s program. Earthwatch, an environmental non-profit, fosters research.
Jesuit High has adopted a commitment to sustainability, teaching students to “care for all of our world’s resources — human, environmental and economic — for a future that is equitable and sustainable.”
The school has a sustainability committee and has made recycling a school-wide effort, redesigned lighting, used environmentally friendly fertilizer and herbicides on landscaping, installed faucets for filling reusable water bottles and adopted reusable dishware.
