.png)
University of Nevada at Reno Ecuador Tropical Ecology Program June 29-July 20, 2019
Morning
BIOSC 1220 Tropical Forest Ecology (3cr)
This 3-Credit course provides a solid foundation in tropical forest ecology. It is designed to prepare students to carry out research on the interaction of plant and animal communities and to engage the serious challenges facing neotropical forests. Students will learn to compare pristine to altered forests identifying key factors in forest decline and regeneration. Students will examine each of the diverse elevational zones that comprise the Amazonian watershed. The highlight will be a visit to Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park, an untouched area of the Amazon with the highest bio-diversity on earth.
Afternoon
ANTH Amazonian Religion and Nature (3cr)
Contact Hours: 45 Credits: 3
Instructor: Tod Swanson
Full Syllabus
Course Description
The course examines Amazonian cultural knowledge of water, weather, plant and animal life seeking to uncover underlying assumptions that constitute a systematic, if implicit, religious philosophy of nature. It also teaches students how to ask key questions and to carry out qualitative ethnographic research in the Cultural Anthropology and the Humanities. How do Amazonian people understand their relatedness to a natural world believed to be alive and human-like? How do they understand the hidden social lives of plants and animals. What is believed to cause new species to emerge or to become extinct? How are human emotions related to the seasonal cycle of rains? How is plant and animal ecology believed to serve as a model for understanding human society and vice versa. What aesthetic, emotional or religious practices were developed to create bonds of empathy or communication between human beings and the natural world.
Learning Objectives:
• Learn to analyze Amazonian narratives on plant and animal origins
• Understand the aesthetics of Amazonian engagement of other species.
• Understand how nature works as a pattern for organizing Amazonian social life and conversely, how social life works as a model for understanding nature.
• Learn to carry out qualitative research in Cultural Anthropology and the Humanities.
Photographs of animals in the Yasuni
Professor Lee Dyer
Professor Tod Swanson
Professor Walter Carson
Cost
Cost : $4855; Out-of-State: (Includes lodging, 3 meals per day 6 credits of tuition in country travel and excursions).
Itinerary
Saturday June 29
11:30 PM Arrive in Quito Shuttle to Real Audiencia
Sunday, June 30
8:00 AM Breakfast
9:00 AM Tour colonial Quito (founded 1535)
12:00 Lunch At Hotel Real Audiencia
1:PM Hike in the high altitude páramo polylepus forest.
6:30 PM Arrive at Yanayacu Cloud forest Station
7:00 PM Dinner
Monday July 1
8:00 Breakfast
9-12 Tropical Ecology
1:00 Lunch
2-4 Hike in the cloud forest
7:00 Dinner at Iyarina
Tuesday, July 2
8:00 Breakfast
9-12 Tropical Ecology
1:00 Lunch
2-5 Introduction to the Ecuadorian Amazon. Swanson
7:00 Dinner
Wednesday, July 3
8:00 Breakfast
9-12 Tropical Ecology
1:00 Lunch
2-5 Amazonian Religion and Nature
7:00 Dinner
Thursday, July 4
8:00 Breakfast
9-12 Tropical Ecology
1:00 Lunch
2-5 Amazonian Religion and Nature
7:00 Dinner
Friday, July 5
8:00 Breakfast
9-12 Tropical Ecology
1:00 Lunch
Afternoon: Free Time
7:00 Dinner
Saturday July 6 Free Day. No Class.
8:00 Breakfast
1:00 Lunch
7:00 Diner
Sunday July 7 Free Day. No Class.
8:00 Breakfast
1:00 Lunch
7:00 Dinner
Monday, July 8
8:00 Breakfast
9-12 Tropical Ecology
1:00 Lunch
2-5 Amazonian Religion and Nature
7:00 Dinner
Tuesday, July 9
8:00 Breakfast
9-12 Tropical Ecology
1:00 Lunch
2-5 Amazonian Religion and Nature
7:00 Dinner
Wednesday, July 10
8:00 Breakfast
9-12 Tropical Ecology
1:00 Lunch
2-5 Amazonian Religion and Nature
7:00 Dinner
Thursday July 11
8:00 Breakfast
9-12 Tropical Ecology
1:00 Lunch
2-5 Amazonian Religion and Nature
7:00 Dinner
Friday, July 12
8:00 Breakfast
Travel to Yasuni National Park
Saturday July 13 Yasuni National Park
8:00 Breakfast
9-12 Class
1:00 Lunch
2-5 Class
7:00 Diner
Sunday July 14 Yasuni National Park
8:00 Breakfast
9-12 Class
1:00 Lunch
2-5 Class
7:00 Dinner
Monday, July 15 Return from Yasuní National Park
Tuesday, July 16 Free Day
Wednesday, July 17 Free Day
Thursday, July 18
8:00 Breakfast
9-12 Tropical Ecology
1:00 Lunch
2-5 Amazonian Religion and Nature
7:00 Dinner
Friday, July 19
8:00 Breakfast
9-12 Tropical Ecology
1:00 Lunch
2-5 Free time
7:00 Dinner
Saturday, July 20
8:00 Breakfast
9-12 Class
1:00 Lunch
2 PM Travel to the Airport and return.