Four Weeks. Two Ecosystems. One Big Question.
Bocas del Toro's coral reefs and rainforests are under pressure from tourism, coastal development, and changing land use. In four weeks you measure that pressure firsthand: snorkeling reefs inside and outside marine protected areas, surveying rainforest biodiversity, and learning from the communities caught in between.
Based on Isla Colón, you'll spend most days in the water or on the trail, collecting paired data from impacted and pristine sites that reveal how human activity reshapes tropical island ecosystems in real time.
What You'll Do
Reef Surveys Inside and Outside MPAs
Snorkel reef sites inside and outside marine protected areas, recording coral health and fish counts to test whether protection works.
Forest Rapid Assessment
Run visual encounter surveys through Isla Bastimentos rainforest, inventorying amphibians and arthropods to gauge terrestrial biodiversity.
Marine Park Governance
Visit Isla Bastimentos National Marine Park and the Zapatillas Cays, then debate whether to expand the park in a stakeholder simulation.
Field Sites
Your field sites pair impacted and pristine habitats across the archipelago, a set of natural experiments in human ecology.
Archipelago Coral Reefs
Reef sites inside and outside marine protected areas, for measuring what protection does.
Isla Bastimentos Forests
Lowland rainforest where students run visual encounter surveys for amphibians and arthropods.
Zapatillas Cays
Cays inside Isla Bastimentos National Marine Park, where reef, seagrass, and mangrove meet.
Snorkel Two Reefs in One Morning. See What Protection Does.
The paired-site design is the engine of this program. Students snorkel reefs inside and outside marine protected areas in the same morning, run visual encounter surveys in the rainforest, and study the tourism and governance shaping both. A snorkel through mangroves shows how they feed the reef. A stakeholder debate asks whether the marine park should grow. The comparison reveals what human pressure reshapes and what still holds, and whether marine park boundaries are doing what they were drawn to do. Field days reach beyond the park too: to the San San Pond Sak wetland, where Panama's largest manatee population shelters in RAMSAR-protected waters, and to Ngöbe cacao cooperatives where chocolate grows beneath standing forest.
Learn by Doing
One integrated course anchors the program, combining marine and terrestrial ecology around a central question: how do human activities alter island ecosystems, and can the damage be reversed? You'll collect field data most mornings and analyze it each afternoon, building toward a group field presentation of your comparative findings.
Course
One field course investigating how human activity reshapes tropical island ecosystems above and below the waterline.
Introduces sustainable tourism concepts alongside evaluation of ecosystem health and diversity, studying human impacts on tropical island environments.
View Syllabus (PDF)Spend Your Summer in the Tropics
Four weeks of marine and terrestrial field research in Panama's Bocas del Toro.
Dates & Costs
4 weeks, 4 credits. Financial aid and SFS scholarships available.
