Gustavus Adolphus College
AC-5: Immersive Experience

Sweden Today: The Gustavus Semester in Sweden Program
This program, offered every other spring semester, is intended to give students experience living and learning in Sweden, a modern, multicultural, and diverse nation that is both a unique northern European country and a part of an integrated Europe. The key themes of this program are climate change, energy production, sustainability, and the diverse regional subculture present in Sweden.

HECUA Environmental Sustainability: Ecology, Policy, and Social Transformation,
Students learn why and how environmental burdens are inequitably distributed, and explore the work of communities organizing for radical, lasting change. At the heart of the program lies a fundamental question: "How can we restore ecosystems, environmental health, and good quality of life for all?" Coursework is interdisciplinary and includes field research, a project-based internship, conversations with innovators in the field of sustainability, and a substantial partnership with a permaculture farm in Wisconsin. Students explore structural inequalities in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and beyond, examining patterns of privilege, power, and oppression. They work on solutions, taking part in environmental justice organizing, ecosystems restoration, and urban and rural sustainability initiatives in the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota.

HECUA New Zealand: A Shared Future, Culture, and Environment,
Students spend their first month traveling by van to key biodiversity and cultural sites on New Zealand’s North Island, hearing from local leaders, observing, learning, and discussing as a group. The depth and relevance of the Maori worldview is a core focus. The following two months in Wellington are devoted to independent study, class meetings, coursework, and internships. Students live with homestay hosts, work on an independent study project, attend classes, and complete a significant internship. Internship placements in past years have ranged from the city council’s acclaimed ‘straw-free waterfront’ campaign to Zealandia Urban Ecosanctuary. Links between environment, culture, policy, and community are at the heart of all field study and internship opportunities.

HECUA Sustainable Agriculture, Food, and Justice in Italy,
HECUA’s exploration of culinary culture and food production in Italy offers an alternative, taking students behind the scenes in the Chianti region, an area known for its innovative organic farming and organic wine production. Students see how Italian and European agricultural policy, business practices, and financial structures affect workers and their communities. Students live and study in Greve in Chianti, a town located 31 kilometers south of Florence, in Tuscany. Students observe how Tuscans define sustainability and are working toward it. Students gain direct experience with food systems, rural Italian culture, and policy through an internship at a nearby farm, school, or other local organization. Students live together in shared apartment-style housing and receive a food stipend to prepare their own meals. In addition to the immersive coursework and concurrent internship, students complete a guided individual study project.

IES Abroad Freiburg - Environmental Studies & Sustainability
This English-taught program allows you to explore topics in Environmental Studies, Forest Ecology, and Sustainability while living in Freiburg, a well-known center for environmental innovation. Freiburg and the surrounding regions will be your classroom.

SIT Study Abroad Argentina: People, Environment, and Climate Change in Patagonia and Antarctica
Learn about the environmental characteristics of Southern Patagonia and Antarctica from your home base in Ushuaia, the southern-most city in the world. See Southern Patagonia's unique biodiversity, ecology, and conservation issues on site visits to Tierra del Fuego National Park, the Beagle Channel, Puerto Williams, Estancia Harberton (the first European settlement in Tierra del Fuego), and Rio Grande. Explore the last pristine region of the world on a 10-day expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula including guided landings. Learn how to apply scientific research tools and methods as you examine how the marine biodiversity of Southern Patagonia and Antarctica is impacted by climate change. Improve your Spanish by practicing in class, on excursions, with your homestay family, and while designing your own research project or joining an ongoing project for an internship.

SIT Study Abroad Australia: Rainforest, Reef, and Cultural Ecology
This program examines the ecology and culture of Australia’s two most diverse environments, the Wet Tropics Bioregion and the Great Barrier Reef, and study the ecological patterns, processes, and human influences affecting these bioregions.

SIT Study Abroad Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation
This program explores tropical ecosystems, conduct biological fieldwork, and study conservation in one of the world’s most biodiverse countries. During the final four weeks of the program, you can choose to use your new language and cultural skills and the academic knowledge you have acquired to complete an Independent Study Project (ISP) on a topic of interest to you.

SIT Study Abroad Iceland: Climate Change and the Arctic
Study climate models, carbon management, and the impact of climate change on Arctic ecosystems and societies. Visit renewable energy centers and glaciers amidst Iceland's and Greenland's unique landscapes. Conduct fieldwork that introduces you to scientific methods and data collection and complete an original research project that has real-world applications.
Gain insider access to experts who work directly with monitoring, predicting, and planning for impacts of a changing climate.

SIT Study Abroad Tanzania: Wildlife Conservation and Political Ecology
This program studies the Relationships between socioeconomic objectives, ecological parameters, and cultural transitions from multi scale/actor perspectives in various Tanzanian landscapes. It’s major topics of focus are conservation, environmental issues, and national park management.

SIT Study Abroad Panama: Tropical Ecology, Marine Ecosystems, and Biodiversity Conservation
Explore rain forests, coral reefs, highland canopies, and coastal mangroves as you study tropical conservation and ecology in one of the world’s most ecologically diverse countries. Engage in seven weeks of travel and field study in Panama and Costa Rica and visit world-renowned research institutions, including the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and EARTH University.

CIEE Tropical Ecology and Conservation in Monteverde, Costa Rica
Explore the biodiversity in Monteverde’s Cloud Forest Reserve, beaches, waterfalls, coral reefs, and more – all while building on your Spanish language skills. Take courses on tropical ecology, and a Spanish language course appropriate to your skills at CIEE Global Institute – Monteverde. Work on an independent research project in tropical ecology or conservation, from observation and data collection to a presentation of your findings. All courses are complemented with CIEE co-curricular activities and excursions beyond the city to enhance classroom learning and provide intercultural understanding.

DIS Copenhagen - Environmental Science of the Arctic
Gain the first-hand knowledge needed to debate one of the most controversial and critical global topics of our time. Explore climate change theory through the lens of scientific climate history in the Arctic. See for yourself, alongside expert scientists in the field on your Study Tours, what is currently being researched in the changes occurring within the glaciers of Iceland, the Greenland ice sheet, or the tundra of Arctic Norway.

DIS Copenhagen - Sustainability
Sustainable development is one of the most important and hotly debated topics of the 21st century. In Denmark and Europe, strategizing sustainability initiatives is a priority, from energy consumption to food production. Experience new approaches to sustainability from a European perspective and hear from the stakeholders shaping today’s agendas. This course enhances your understanding of the divergent goals and complex processes associated with sustainable development from a European perspective. Specific focus is given to the interplay between social, political, and economic issues and environmental concern. You are introduced to a broad range of Danish and European stakeholders currently shaping the sustainability agenda, and encouraged to identify your own values and strategies for a sustainable future.

Gustavus J-Term 2022: Climate Change and Conservation in Bolivia
Climate change is reshaping life and landscapes on Earth, and nowhere is this more clear than in the South American country of Bolivia. Stretching from the Amazon rainforest to the Andes mountains, the challenges of climate change are as diverse as the landscape. Starting in the low-elevation dry forests to the east of Santa Cruz, we will talk with locals and view the consequences of last year’s terrible forest fires brought about by drought and government policies that encouraged land conversion for ranching. The Cochabamba area, called the “city of eternal spring,” saw terrible mudslides from unusual downpours, while outside Oruro, the former mining capital of the country, Lake Poopó has dried up from water diversions and extended drought. At the Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat, we will learn about efforts to extract lithium from the brine for use in green technology, and will marvel at the volcanic other-worldly landscape. Perhaps most dramatically, high above La Paz the glaciers that feed that area are melting; we will visit the site of Chacaltaya, a former glacier ski resort that is now completely gone. We will end our investigations in a rainforest lodge three hours up the Beni river in the heart of Madidi National Park, one of the most biodiverse areas in the world.
Although our focus is the impacts and responses to climate change, Bolivia offers us much more: twice the number of bird species as Costa Rica, three species of camels (llamas, alpacas, vicuñas), Andean condors, a topography that climbs from the Amazon to the Andes in 200 miles, a population that identifies as over 70% indigenous, and a government that struggles to find its way in this changing world. From the old missions of the Chiquitanía region, to the quinoa and llama growing villages of the Altiplano, to the modern cities of Cochabamba and La Paz and the Amazon jungle, we will experience the places, and talk with local people, scientists, indigenous leaders, and government officials to understand the challenges and options facing the people of Bolivia and the world with a changing climate.

Gustavus J-Term 2022: With One Voice in Madagascar: Exploring Wellbeing from a Malagasy Perspective
This course is designed for students who are interested in exploring global health and wellbeing in Madagascar from a holistic perspective that regards one’s physical, emotional and spiritual health as intricately enmeshed. Students will visit a number of health care sites, from hospitals, village clinics, rural Tobys, and homecare hospice. Students will learn how to introduce one’s self in the Malagasy language as well as to sing in Malagasy some favorite songs of the people for the patients in hospitals and in hospice. There will be opportunities to talk with doctors, nurses, and community health workers as we travel through the country. In the highlands, we will visit the Antsirabe hospital, rural clinics, and a school for the blind.