Where Water Rights Get Decided
Environmental justice stops being abstract the moment you sit across the table from the family it affects. This program brings you into rural Costa Rican communities where land rights, water access, and conservation policy collide.
You'll learn to listen before you analyze: conducting interviews with community members, mapping environmental-justice cases for a global atlas, and documenting how grassroots movements shape the landscapes people depend on.
What You'll Do
Community Interviews
Sit with farmers, water-association members, and Indigenous community members to document firsthand perspectives on land use, water rights, and conservation.
Environmental Justice Mapping
Research a Costa Rican case of environmental injustice, build a profile of it, and add your work to the global Environmental Justice Atlas.
Policy Analysis
Compare Costa Rica's landmark environmental laws with on-the-ground outcomes in the communities they were written to protect.
Field Sites
Your field sites center on the people and places where environmental policy meets daily life in Costa Rica's Central Valley.
Finca Orgánica San Luis
An organic farm where seed-saving networks keep heirloom varieties alive.
Quitirrisí Community
An Indigenous community where food sovereignty and land rights are daily practice.
Los Chorros & Balsa
The springs that supply most of Atenas's drinking water, and the community association that manages them.
Justice Starts Where the Water Starts
At Los Chorros springs, the water source that provides 60% of Atenas's drinking water, students measure what protection looks like, and what happens when it fails. At the Quitirrisí indigenous community, food sovereignty and land rights show up in daily practice: how families hold land, save seed, and manage water. A cloud forest field exercise maps the Tragedy of the Commons by comparing two communities and their amphibians: one where the golden toad vanished, and Alto del Roble, home of the Holdridge's toad. In Sarapiquí, ecotourism, food sovereignty, and water interconnections collide on a single field trip.
Learn by Doing
One course combines environmental social science with field methods: interviewing, participatory mapping, and policy analysis. You'll engage directly with the communities whose lives are shaped by environmental decisions.
Course
One field course grounding environmental justice in real community voices and landscapes.
Studies environmental justice through indigenous community visits, organic farm tours, community water association analysis, and seed sovereignty case studies.
View Syllabus (PDF)Make Justice Part of Your Summer
Four weeks of community-engaged field research in Costa Rica's Central Valley.
Dates & Costs
4 weeks, 4 credits. Financial aid and SFS scholarships available.
