Tropical Ecology Short Course Program

In January of 2000, 12 DelVal students, accompanied by Drs. Bodri and Fortier, traveled to the Jatun Sacha Field Station in Ecuador for the department's first course in tropical ecology. They were joined by Dr. Nancy Grieg from the Museum of Natural Science in Houston for 2 weeks of intensive study on the ecology and natural history of the tropical rain forest. This trip included close encounters with a wide array of flora and fauna, including bats, birds, monkeys, tarantulas and other fascinating creatures. Between field trips and lectures, students devised their own independent research projects that were completed within the two week interval. The trip was so successful that it was repeated at a new site in Ecuador in 2001.

In 2003, the Tropical Ecology course moved from Ecuador to Costa Rica to utilize the Tropical Youth Center (TYC) facilities overseen by Fundacion Neotropica. Fundacion Neotropica's mission for the TYC is to increase environmental awareness as a means of improving socio-environmental conditions in the Osa peninsula and other regions of Costa Rica. To meet this objective, the TYC is involved in education, extension and documentation. The environmental education camp offers practical and theoretical methodologies that encourage participants to understand interactions in different ecosystems and recognize the importance of using these ecosystems in sustainable ways. Techniques include field activities, or "forest laboratories," hikes through tropical forest and coastal ecosystems and classroom discussions. The different habitats visited include Paramo (high altitude alpine area), Poas volcano cloud forest, seaside forest and marine preserve, lowland tropical rainforest (both primary and secondary) and mangrove forest. DelVal intends to make TYC our permanent staging area for the DelVal Tropical Ecology short course. Costa Rica is incredibly safe and has a great health care system and remarkably friendly people. The bilingual educators are excellent teachers.