More details below, or visit www.wrangells.org/fieldstudies.
WRANGELL MOUNTAINS COLLEGE FIELD STUDIES 2019
Program dates: June 22-August 9, 2019 (seven weeks) Credits awarded: 16 quarter/ 10 semester upper division
Cost: $9400, inclusive of food, tuition, fees, and transportation from Anchorage to McCarthy (travel to Anchorage not included)
Faculty: Dr. Ken Tabbutt (geology), Peter Impara (geography, landscape ecology), Nalini Nadkarni (forest ecology), Shawn Hazboun (sociology)
Website: www.wrangells.org/fieldstudies
With glaciers and meltwater streams flowing from 16,000 foot peaks, canyons deeper than Yosemite, spruce-forested valleys, and a region experience extensive disturbance due to climate change, our study area is in the middle of the world’s largest international complex of protected wilderness lands. Glaciation, volcanism, erosion and ecological disturbance and succession are exposed and active, making it an ideal natural laboratory in which to study Alaska’s dynamic landscapes.
In the fast-changing world, even the most remote landscapes are rapidly evolving, posing new challenges to researchers, natural resource managers, and residents. Alaska’s Wrangell Mountains are a “natural classroom,” and over the course of our summer program, students learn how ecology, geology, and human activity, policy, and climate change impact the landscape of the Wrangell Mountains, and beyond. Our team-taught inter-disciplinary curriculum will provide the knowledge, skills and abilities to tackle the important environmental questions of the future. The remote setting will foster self- and group-responsibility and build students’ confidence in backcountry travel and field research. One month is spend exclusively in the backcountry, and three weeks are spent in McCarthy at the Wrangell Mountains Center's headquarters.
Students will receive credit for three upper-division (junior-senior) courses:
Natural History of Alaska (4 quarter hours) – Survey of natural history of Wrangell-St. Elias ecosystems, including an introduction to scientific, social-scientific and arts-based research methods for field studies. Introduction to Wrangell-St. Elias species identification, ecosystem characteristics (including geologic formations), disturbance and critical field skills such as generating and refining inquiry questions from on-site observations, assessing and optimizing methods, interpreting data, and presenting findings and placing research in a broader context, such as through field journaling and scientific writing.
People and Place (4 quarter hours) – Field study, using social science research, of relationships among cultural groups and the environment and issues of sustainability. Writing creatively about protected areas, the imaginative process integrates literary, social and natural sciences. Employing regional case studies, students assess historical and contemporary thought and use of protected lands, and outcomes of different environmental policies and land/wildlife management, including human and natural consequences.
Field Research: Dynamic Landscapes (8 quarter hours) – The emphasis on this program is to prepare students to participate in faculty-mentored, undergraduate field research. Research methods and data analysis will be introduced during the first backcountry trip in the second week. This practical experience will prepare students to conduct their own small-group research project during the second, three-week backcountry trip.
TO APPLY: visit www.wrangells.org/fieldstudies
Admission is on a rolling basis, and the end of rolling admission is April 26.
