George Mason University
AC-5: Immersive Experience

Mason’s one-week Alternative Break (AB) programs are collaboratively designed by students, community organizations and staff to address social issues through education and community service. In 2019-2020, students participated in ecosystem restoration in Stuart, Florida, investigated environmental justice in Camden, New Jersey, and contributed to climate resilience in Puerto Rico. Students emerge from these experiences transformed with new ideas, perspective, and experiences that inspire active and engaged citizenship. Students work in partnership with host organizations on community-driven goals, focused on a particular social justice topic.

In addition to the Alternative Break program, Mason offers semester long immersive experience at The Smithsonian Mason School of Conservation in which students spend an entire semester getting hands on experience with prominent conservationists, researchers, and educators. This immersive experience offers two programs: Conservation, Biodiversity, and Society (CBS) and Wildlife Ecology and Conservation (WEC). These programs offer a unique opportunity to learn about conservation biology within the social, economic, and political context. Students also learn sustainable living and life style skills by living in a dorm which is LEED certified.

Mason also has study abroad programs that focus on sustainability. For example, there is a 15-day winter trip to Belize, called Coastal Ecology and Environmental Science, that explores tropical coastal ecosystems and the conservation challenges of anthropogenic stressors on ecosystems.

https://masonabroad.gmu.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=Programs.ViewProgram&Program_ID=10034