Had a meeting with Tom Simpson of the Nature Live Team to plan our outreach activities for the trip. We are planning a two-pronged approach:

For the public...

• Daily updates from the field with blog posts, pictures and video appearing on Nature Live's Nature+ page with opportunities for the public to get in touch with trip via the pages' comments sections.
• A chance for the public to be transported live to the field trip with live links to Costa Rica at 12:30 and 14:00 on the 11th, 16th and 18th February from the NHM Attenborough Studio. As we will be six hours behind the earlier broadcast will be at 6.30 in the morning our time!

For schools...

School pupils of a wide range of ages will be engaged with the trip through the 'Nature Live Adventurer' Nature+ page (closed to the public) where they can discover what is happening on the trip, post questions and engage in live chat room sessions with Tom while he is in the field. They will also have the chance to meet Alex and Tom with pre and post trip Video Conferencing sessions from the museum/s Attenborough Studio.

We are taking a mobile video broadcasting system and communicating using a satellite over Ecuador. This is a first for us and it will be interesting to see how it works. We are hoping to be able to iron out any snags and use this as an opportunity to develop a system for deployment on other Museum trips. Below is a picture taken last year of myself and very gifted Costa Rican botanist Daniel Santamaria. We hope to be able to broadcast from sites such as this next month!