Editors: Jacob Pritchard can be reached while he is in Central America by e-mail and by telephone at about 5 p.m. MST each day at 011-52-33-3631-5279.
A University of Colorado at Boulder student leaves for Honduras Dec. 6 to document a $10 billion Central American road project that will connect the city of Puebla, located about 60 miles southeast of Mexico City, with Panama City, Panama.
The Plan Puebla Panama construction project was initiated by Vicente Fox, president of Mexico, and includes plans for the private development of water, oil, timber and mineral deposits along the route. The road will be approximately 2,000 miles long when completed.
Jacob Pritchard, a junior in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, received a $1,200 grant to study the project from CU-Boulder's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program.
Pritchard is a news-editorial major whose focus is photojournalism and plans to stay in Central America through much of the spring semester. He intends to record the progress of the construction project along with the reactions of the people who live nearby, many of whom are concerned about the development.
Upon his return, he will oversee the creation of a Web site for displaying the results of his study.
"It is very important to me that my project's results are dispersed as widely as possible," Pritchard said. To maintain his full-time student status while he is away, he will take online courses via the Internet.
UROP is a CU-Boulder Special Undergraduate Enrichment Program that supports student research within a broad range of topics. For more information visit the Web site at .