Muhlenberg College
AC-5: Immersive Experience

Muhlenberg College offers multiple immersive, sustainability-focused educational study programs. The programs include one or both of the following criteria:
It concentrates on sustainability, including its social, economic and environmental dimensions and/or it examines an issue or topic using sustainability as a lens. The immersive programs focus on community engagement within the context of sustainability locally and abroad.

Current immersive include but are not limited to -
Costa Rica:
“Students explore solutions to the delicate problem of environmental and cultural conservation in developing countries with a focus on Costa Rica. During the spring semester, students develop projects and prepare for the two-week study/research/travel experience to Costa Rica at the end of May. This preparation includes study of the area's ecological diversity; political, cultural, and social issues; research skills; and relevant Spanish vocabulary and conversation skills. In Costa Rica, students explore a variety of habitats, live in and interact with members of a small town, and conduct both community service and independent research projects. Research projects focus on the ecology, sociology, culture, sustainability, and public health of the region. One of the objectives of the program is to remove the blinders of specific discipline-based learning and of our own culture to show that if we are to develop sustainable solutions.”
*This description was copied from our Capstone course system
http://www.muhlenberg.edu/main/academics/sustainability/courses/

Bangladesh:
“This team-taught course examines the impact of climate change on economic, social, and political development by focusing on the nation of Bangladesh. In addition to introducing students to the science and politics of climate change, the course also examines the specific environmental, economic, and social challenges confronting Bangladesh's political development since its independence; investigates the environmental and social consequences of state-sponsored development strategies, especially recent market-based 'neo-liberal' policies; and evaluates new 'sustainable development' strategies that are emerging as a response to the challenges posed by climate change.”
*This description was copied from our Capstone course system

Allentown:
Local Sustainability
This course will take an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing sustainability at the local level either in the Muhlenberg community or communities in the Lehigh Valley, and will explore human-environment issues within the context of the relationship among individuals and institutions. Through readings, presentations, and the development of individual research projects, students will assess current sustainability efforts and develop recommendations for future efforts. Research projects may include surveying community members about perceptions and attitudes towards sustainability and environmental issues, assessing current sustainability efforts, and interviewing local experts, members of organizations and politicians. Priorities for research will be determined in collaboration with the community, and results and recommendations will be shared.

Ireland
Writing About Place: Ecologies, Sustainability and Voice
Place is a powerful force in our lives, pulling us toward the fields of our childhoods and into imagined futures. The relationship between nature, ecology and humanity is complex, and the environmental imperatives of a given moment
have long been a fascination of writers. In this MILA course, we will explore the many ways to creatively write about nature during a period of accelerating extinctions, threatened biomes, habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change, and the emergence of the Anthropocene. By studying the complex ethical responses to environmental transformations and catastrophes of eminent eco-writers, we will consider how powerful environmental imaginaries and narratives have served to intervene in devastating trajectories and inaccurately simplified the environment and its problems, and develop our own ethics of place and environmental consciousness. We will examine the relationship between aesthetics, poetics, nature, ecology, wilderness, agriculture, and humanity.

Japan
Religion & Ecology in Japan
Though religious life and environmental stewardship are often understood to be mutually exclusive realms of human activity, the reality is that these land practices often influence one another in important ways. This course to Japan offers a unique opportunity to explore the intersections of sustainability and religion in the context of an industrialized Asian country. After a semester introducing students to the fundamentals of ecology and how humans rely upon and
impact ecosystem processes, as well as to the history and ritual of Buddhism and indigenous Shinto, we will visit Japan. There, we will explore Japanese religious communities, businesses, schools, and secular urban spaces to gain an understanding of Japanese practices of place, addressing several key questions. How does the recently designated UNESCO World Heritage Pilgrimage, the Kumano Kodo, handle the environmental stress of its 15 million annual visitors? To what extent does the Buddhist teaching of no-self affect the Japanese response to the 2011 tsunami? How do small-scale fisheries situate themselves in both the global economy and in the Shinto universe of gods and humans? We will visit both urban industrialized Osaka and deeply rural Wakayama, investigating the way Japanese people attempt to balance industrialized manufacturing, dense urban living, and the limited resources of a small island nation. As case studies, we will explore the impacts of the Japanese fishing industry on global ocean health and engage in service learning with a lay-based ecological religious movement led by a Shugendo
priest.

Besides the MILAs, there are many semester-long study abroad programs on our list that include a significant focus on sustainability. While these outside programs do not directly contribute to this credit since the programs are off campus, we do encourage students to participate in them when choosing to study abroad:

Australia: SIT - Sustainability and Environmental Action
Australia: SFS - Rainforest to Reef
Bhutan: SFS - Himalayan Environment, and Society in Transition
Cambodia: SFS - Climate Change, Ethics, and Conservation
Chile: SFS - Wild Patagonia - Fire and Ice
China: SIT - Health, Environment, and Traditional Chinese Medicine
Costa Rica: CIEE - Monteverde
Costa Rica: SFS - Sustainable Development Studies
Ecuador: SIT - Comparative Ecology and Conservation
Fiji: ISA - University of the South Pacific
Kenya: SFS - Wildlife, Water, and Climate Resilience
Madagascar: SIT - Biodiversity and Natural Resource Management
Mongolia and Siberia: SIT - Nomadism, Geopolitics, and the Environment
Nepal: SIT - Tibetan and Himalayan Peoples
Panama: SFS - Tropical Island Biodiversity Studies
Panama: SIT - Tropical Ecology, Marine Ecosystems, and Biodiversity Conservation
Peru: SIT - Indigenous Peoples and Globalization
Portugal: SIT - Sustainability and Environmental Justice
Samoa: SIT - Social and Environmental Change in Oceania
Tanzania: SFS - Wildlife Management Studies
Tanzania: SIT - Wildlife Conservation and Political Ecology
Tanzania: SIT - Zanzibar - Coastal Ecology and Natural Resource Management
Turks and Caicos: SFS - Marine Resource Studies
Uganda: SIT - Global Development Studies