Things Documents Vaccines Flight info Contacts Some beginning Spanish Course Description Scientists equate the rapid loss of species due to human activities in the modern era to the massive extinction events evident in the geologic record. However, these two types of extinction events differ in important ways. In the extinction event in which we now live, humans make decisions about which species to save. We also decide, explicitly or implicitly, which species will go extinct. Understanding and formulating solutions to modern extinctions is the central concern of the field of biodiversity, a discipline that requires skills in the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities.
Tropical ecosystems are critical reservoirs of biodiversity.
Twenty-five acres of rain forest are lost throughout the world every minute of every day. An intensive lecture schedule will be combined with first-hand field experiences, individual projects, and group investigations emphasizing research methods in tropical systems. Topics to be covered in depth include tropical ecology, the geology of Costa Rica, Pre-Columbian to modern patterns of land use, indigenous patterns of land use by the Bribri, and the statistical analysis of field data. We will draw on visits to Pre-Columbian archaeological sites, to an abandoned banana plantation, to oil palm cooperatives, to a mangrove community and to an island cemetery of an indigenous people in order to piece together the ecology of the region and its history of human impact. We will also stay in Corcovado, a biological reserve that contains one of Central America's most important tracts of virgin rain forest.