This study abroad course brings together topics and methods from social and environmental history to immerse students in the field-based study of the history of ecological conservation in southern Costa Rica. Course readings and discussions, field trips, and guest speakers introduce students to diverse perspectives on the successes and trade-offs of environmental protections in the region and the effects of conservation policies on local farmers and communities. Students participate in documenting and analyzing the perspectives of local community members and area experts, gaining hands-on skills in project planning, research ethics, oral history and audio production methods. The course is open to undergraduate and graduate students. No prerequisites.
This course employs experiential education methods to introduce students to the history of conservation and its challenges and opportunities at the local level. Guest speakers and field trips in and around the Las Nubes EcoCampus will build upon course readings and lectures to introduce students to some of the key tensions in the environmental history in the region (for example, between export agriculture and ecological protection; between ecotourism and resource extraction; and between local, national, and international priorities and leadership) and highlight community-based adaptations and responses.
With assistance from a translator and Las Nubes staff, students will create and analyze new historical source materials by working in groups to record oral history interviews with community members and area experts. The audio and transcript files for these interviews will be submitted for possible inclusion in La Casita Azul's community archive. Students will then incorporate interview excerpts into narrated podcast episodes that reflect upon their experience and situate the interviews within the environmental history scholarship of the region.