Center for Amazon Studies

The Living Amazon

Peru
Semester
15 Weeks
18 Credits
Fall 2025
Sep 1 - Dec 12
Open
Spring 2026
Jan 26 - May 7
Open
Program Costs
  • Tuition$19,000
  • Room & Board$5,000
  • Total$24,000
Application Deadlines
Fall 2025
May 1, 2025
Spring 2026
November 1, 2025
Semester Program

The Living Amazon

Tarapoto,
Peru

Students climb from cloud forests to lowland jungles, surveying biodiversity, mapping plant–animal interactions, and tracing how altitude shapes life. From ridgelines they see intact canopy stretching in one direction and fields newly cleared for timber and oil in the other. Each trek carries the tension that the world’s richest forests are also among its most endangered. Each dataset transforms from numbers to evidence in a struggle that links Amazon futures to global survival. The days are also filled with joy: the flash of macaws in the trees, river otters floating downstream, and the discovery of rare orchids, sometimes right beside you.

  • Track pink river dolphins at the Amazon’s birthplace, logging GPS coordinates, group size, behavior, and water conditions.
  • Survey biodiversity turnover from Andes to lowland by establishing permanent GPS plots, cataloging vegetation, and deploying climate loggers.
  • Record ancestral medicinal plant knowledge with Indigenous women healers, noting preparation methods, habitat conditions, and oral histories.
  • Ground-truth a contested logging frontier, setting waypoints at boundary markers, interviewing forest guardians, and mapping disputed areas.
  • Conduct Directed Research: frame a stakeholder-driven question, collect and analyze field data with faculty guidance, and present actionable findings to local partners.

Academics

This academically rigorous program follows a five-day/week schedule. 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 Peru.

Major academic themes include:

  • Climate change and conservation practice
  • Landscape ecology and habitat fragmentation
  • Biodiversity assessment
  • Forest health and recovery
  • Indigenous knowledge and histories
  • Ecosystem services and carbon markets
  • Impacts of development in the Amazon
  • Biogeography
  • Political ecology

Courses

On the Living Amazon 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.

Click on the
to view a description and download the syllabus.
SFS 2090
Language, Culture, and Society of Peru
2 credits
SFS 3800
Conservation Science and Practice in Peru
4 credits
SFS 3831
Tropical Ecology of the Amazon
4 credits
SFS 3840
Political Ecology of Peru
4 credits
SFS 4910
Directed Research – Peru
4 credits

Core Skills

You will gain practical skills in the field such as: species identification and population monitoring, biodiversity and habitat surveys, research plots and transects, interviewing and mapping techniques, conservation strategy assessment, 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 tropical lowland rainforests, wildlife sanctuaries, protected reserves, Amazonian riverine ecosystems, high-elevation forests and the highlands of the Andes, traditional medicinal gardens, high-elevation montane and cloud forests, rural villages and agricultural communities, and floodplain forests.     


Other Peru Programs

Semester

The Living Amazon

15 Weeks
18 Credits
Fall 2025
Sep 1 - Dec 12
Open
Spring 2026
Jan 26 - May 7
Open

More Information

Program Costs
  • Tuition$19,000
  • Room & Board$5,000
  • Total$24,000

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Peru
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