New study abroad field course in Costa Rica

Mon, 20 Feb 2017 17:32:34 -0500

We are happy to announce that a new faculty-led international field course this summer to Costa Rica (Course dates: May 29 - June 14, 2017)

This course will be led by Dr. Maggie Holland & Dr. Matt Fagan (both from GES), and Dr. Lee Blaney (CBEE).

Course title: Climate Change at the Forest-Water Nexus

The goal of this field course is to provide students with an applied and active learning experience in the Tropics through a mixture of interdisciplinary fieldwork, service-learning, and environmental/cultural engagement. Students will directly engage with rural communities through integrated fieldwork and service projects, gaining hands-on experience in social science field research (participatory photo mapping), environmental engineering fieldwork (water quality monitoring), and field ecology techniques (monitoring cloud forests and avian biodiversity). Together, the group will work to weave together these three fieldwork efforts into a more comprehensive understanding of climate change impacts at the forest-water nexus as it is represented in the Monteverde region in Costa Rica.

Note: This course offered as a GES 400/600-level Special Topics course, and will therefore be open to enrollment by both undergraduate and graduate students, regardless of major concentration. While there is no minimum language requirement, students with strong communication skills in Spanish (completion of at least one 300-level Spanish language course, or native fluency) will be given special consideration.

We'll host our first informational session next Wednesday, Feb 22nd, from noon-1pm in the Cart Lab in the basement of Sondheim Hall.

A second informational session will take place on Monday, Feb 27th, from 3:30-4:30pm in the GES department conference room (210 Sondheim Hall).

More details on the class (including how to apply) are available via this link:
https://goabroad.umbc.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=Programs.ViewProgram&Program_ID=28880
Applications are due by March 10th!