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Field Trips to Important Ecosystems
allow Institute students an opportunity to develop the sort of understanding
that can only come from first-hand experience. Each year the Institute
offers the half-unit course "Ecology and Environmental Issues of
____________," where we fill in the blank with a region of the United
States. The course entails a seminar during the spring semester,
followed by a trip to the region. We visited
Florida in 2000 the
Pacific Northwest in 2001, the Southwest
in 2002, Chesapeake Bay in 2003,
Coastal Louisiana in 2004, and
California in 2005. As the name implies, these trips have two goals. We
visit parks and preserves to see ecosystems firsthand, in as unspoiled a
state as possible. We believe that it is important to actually
experience an ecosystem in order to fully appreciate it. We also
look at human-impacted systems and environmental issues of national
importance and discuss the choices we face, both as
individuals and as a nation.
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