Understanding a culture’s relationship to the natural world provides insight into successful conservation strategies. Successful approaches to community-based conservation often incorporate local knowledge and necessitate perceiving humans as part of the environment. Drawing on disciplines such as anthropology and geography, and this reading and discussion-based course covers topics such as Human Wildlife Conflict, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, impacts of protected areas on local people, ecosystem services, and the methods and problems associated with applying research to conservation and development efforts.
Applied ecology provides the conceptual basis for the practice of science-based ecological research, conservation, monitoring, and restoration. In this course, we will explore concepts in ecology that are essential for understanding how historical land-use shapes ecosystems today, and how we can expect systems to respond in the future to current disturbances and proposed management actions. Ecological concepts covered within this course include trophic cascades, speciation, predation and herbivory, habitat use and preference, aquatic and terrestrial food webs, disturbance regimes, and climate change. The course also focuses on local applications for ecological restoration, such as removing or modifying a source of disturbance (e.g., a dam), removing invasive non-native species, reintroducing native species, and removing barriers to wildlife movement. By providing locally relevant case studies and scientific articles, students will learn to apply ecological concepts to local conservation and restoration projects, assignments, and fieldwork.
(Note: This course is offered in lieu of the Applied Ecology course on the Botswana program.)
Much of southern Africa has adopted Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) approaches to conservation, led and implemented by community organizations, traditional leaders, conservation NGO’s, private-sector investors, and government authorities. The goal of CBNRM is for local communities and private landowners to benefit directly from both consumptive and non-consumptive natural resource utilization strategies. This course covers major approaches to CBNRM focusing on evaluating the success of local strategies.
For a copy of the syllabi, please contact
studyabroad@roundriver.org.
Our accrediting institution is Westminster University, which oversees course development and evaluation, provides faculty review, and issues transcripts for academic credit. Each Round River program participant is registered at Westminster University for the duration of the program (with a few specific exceptions). Grades are recorded at Westminster University, and official transcripts are issued which meet accepted standards for transferability. Students can then transfer these credits to their home institution.
A = 94; A- = 90; B+ = 87; B = 83 ; B- = 80; C+ = 77;
C = 73; C- = 70, D+ = 67; D=63; D- = 60; F <60
Alumni can find more information about ordering transcripts from Westminster University here.
