Field Courses and Field Trips

Environmental studies students spend much of their time in the field!  Most ES courses offered during the academic year feature field experiences, such as trips to Assateague Island, Strawberry Hill Nature Preserve, Great Falls, or Washington DC.   The department also offers two summer field courses, one to the Rocky Mountain West and one to the coast of Maine.

ES Majors Alexis Melusky ('05), Chris Martin ('07), Tara Hewitt ('07), and Jennie Fiorito ('06) measuring a beach profile and collecting sand samples at Assateague Island National Seashore.

In ES 211 Principles of Ecology. students study the population dynamics of beach animals every September.

FYS 148 Women, Wildlife, and Water: Gender and the Global Environment.  At Strawberry Hill Nature Preserve, students find out what it's like to do "women's work" in forest-dependent communities of the developing world.  Above: first year students Caitlin Stoltz, Kara O'Brien, Danielle Bates, Amanda Ward, and Michiko Sasaki hone their skills in fuelwood collection and headloading. 

A Field Trip to Great Falls, on the Potomic

Above: Students from ES/POL 333 Environmental Policy visit Washington DC each fall to experience policy making in action. Trips focus on current issues such as efforts to reform the 1973 Endangered Species Act or oil drilling in ANWR. In past trips students have met with EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, Assistant Secretary of the Interior, Craig Manus, Congressman Wayne Gilchrest, and Forest Policy Director for the Sierra Club, Sean Cosgrove.

Above: Students from ES 333 Environmental Policy and GECO (Gettysburg College Environmetnal Concerns Organization) meet up with Ranger Rick at a rally on the Mall to stop oil drilling in ANWR (the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge) in fall 2005.

Above: During the ANWR rally, students had an opportunity to meet with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Other speakers at the rally included Robert Kennedy Jr., Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Sen. Lincoln Chaffee, and Sen. John Kerry.

In ES 350 Coastal Ecology of Maine, students investigate the rocky shore, sandflats, spruce-fir forests, and other coastal habitats for two weeks in late May. The course is designed to be completed in time for students to move into their summer jobs and internships in June.