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Ecological Resilience Studies
Go off the beaten path and experience resilience in action. Spend a semester in Costa Rica, home to rainforests, volcanoes, rushing waterfalls, and a laid-back culture that reflects the national motto: “Pura Vida.” Immerse yourself in the country’s many national parks, farms, and tropical ecosystems full of incredible biodiversity. Design and conduct a rigorous field research project and learn how Costa Ricans are creatively addressing conservation and development issues.
- Explore the cloud forests of Monteverde, home to 2.5% of the world’s biodiversity, to study tropical ecology, resilient land management, and community development efforts.
- Travel to the remote southwest corner of Costa Rica to visit the Osa Peninsula, a lush, geographically isolated peninsula that is home to more than half of Costa Rica’s total biodiversity.
- Go behind the scenes at local farms to learn how Costa Ricans have successfully combined agriculture and conservation.
- Engage in the Center’s sustainable food efforts – gather fresh mangoes from campus trees, visit the chicken coop to gather eggs, harvest kale from the garden, master composting, and more.
- Conduct a comprehensive field research project: Develop a research question, collect and analyze data, write a paper, and present your findings.
Academics
This academically rigorous program follows a five-day/week schedule. Most weekends are open. Each program combines theory learned during classroom sessions with field-based applications. The interdisciplinary curriculum is designed to help students actively discover and understand the complexities of environmental, social, and economic issues in Costa Rica.
Major academic themes may include:
- Climate change and tropical ecosystems
- Agroforestry and conservation
- Vertebrate ecology
- Water Conservation
- Urban ecology
- Sustainable ecotourism
- Carbon sequestration
Courses
On the Ecological Resilience program, you will take three 4-credit disciplinary courses, one 2-credit language and culture course, and a 4-credit capstone Directed Research course. Courses are participatory in nature and are designed to foster inquiry and active learning. Each course combines lectures, field exercises, assignments, tests, and research. All courses are taught in English
Language, Culture, and Society of Costa Rica
This course contains two distinct but integrated modules. The Spanish language module offers listening, oral, and written practice of the Spanish language at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels of proficiency. Students engage in oral and written grammar and vocabulary exercises, and develop Spanish language skills and tools required for their research projects. The sociocultural module helps students to develop a more refined understanding of Costa Rican culture and the various communities with which we work. Students participate in lectures, field exercises, and other activities that teach them strategies and skills for working with people in a community-based research context and help them to assist with community extension projects.
Principles of Natural Resource Management
This course is designed to examine the connection between society and natural resources, and how application of management tools can lead to biodiversity conservation and sustainable livelihoods. This course introduces underlying concepts and practical tools used in addressing complex environmental problems, including protected area planning and management, guidelines for ecologically sustainable development, and environmental impact assessment. Students examine local case studies using the theory and practice learned in this course.
Tropical Ecology and Ecosystem Resilience
This course examines the ecological impact of human activity, especially agriculture, in a tropical country. Students study the agro-ecology of important crops, with emphasis on biodiversity as the source of production means and materials. Students identify renewable and nonrenewable resources and examine their historical use. We study the long-term and large-scale impact of local agricultural and other practices on the national and global environment (e.g., water pollution, waste management, climate change). Students examine options for alternative resources use, land restoration, and preservation from ecological, sociopolitical, and economic viewpoints, and use basic field techniques and measurements to examine the efficacy of different options.
Justice, Resilience, and the Environment
This course addresses the intersection of the human and environmental sides of sustainable development in Costa Rica. Linking human rights to sustainability is an emerging field that combines the important dimensions of economic and social rights with the environmental underpinnings of sustainability. We use a multidisciplinary methodology to cover themes of local and global social and environmental policies, valuing of and access to ecosystem services, development aid, agrarian reform, indigenous rights and local livelihoods, and climate change. Students examine the roles of local people, government, and local and international non-governmental actors in the implementation of sustainable development models. Students also review specific local case studies to explore the empowerment of local people and their reaction to local and non-local proposals for sustainable development.
Directed Research – Costa Rica
This course prepares students to distinguish hidden assumptions in scientific approaches and separate fact from interpretation, cause from correlation, and advocacy from objectivity. Students learn specific tools including: experimental design; field techniques; basic descriptive statistics; and parametric and non-parametric quantitative analysis. Emphasis is placed on succinct scientific writing, graphic and tabular presentation of results, and effective delivery of oral presentations.
Core Skills
You will gain practical skills in the field such as: GIS use and applications, species identification, habitat and biodiversity assessment, vertebrate ecology, tourism impact assessment methods, basic Spanish language skills, research design and implementation, quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis, and research presentation.
Field Sites
You will visit different ecosystems and communities which may include lowland tropical rainforest, tropical cloud forest, Pacific coastal rainforest, dry forests, national parks, agroecosystems, farms, volcanoes, mangroves, and coastal ecosystems.
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