Santa Clara University
AC-5: Immersive Experience

The Food, Hunger, Poverty, Environment Immersion is designed to help students meet their social justice-oriented experiential learning requirements while learning about issues related to food production and consumption, hunger, poverty, and the environment. The course blends short lectures, guided discussions and reflections and a 14-day immersion in Cuba interacting with local people of diverse backgrounds for experiential active learning. The two-quarter Business 151 course examines the history, culture, educational system, economy, agricultural sector, and political and governmental structure of Cuba. Students examine Cuba’s progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Each student is required to submit written reflections and participate in team presentations about various aspects of Cuba. The goal is to increase students’ understanding of the challenges associated with equitably distributing the rewards of economic development within the socio-cultural and environmental contexts of a low-income Latin-American country. http://www.scu.edu/business/fai/education/immersion_trip_intro.cfm The SCU Baja Program is a course-based expedition to Baja, Mexico. The program entails taking students during Spring Break to write about and investigate, by kayak, snorkel, and on foot, habitats in southern Baja, including one of the most amazing desert and marine ecosystems on the planet-the desert island Isla Espiritu Santo. The program has existed over 10 years, and is led by faculty from the Environmental Sciences and Studies department in partnership with the Global Engagement Office. This 10-unit program includes an advanced writing course (ENVS 142: Writing Natural History) and a Biology/Environmental Studies course (BIOL/ENVS 144: Natural History of Baja). The classes meet together during Winter Quarter. Each of the two courses contain a specific student project that focusses directly on social, economic, and environmental dimensions of Baja. In ENVS 142, this is a co-authored student paper on a topic of sustainability. In ENVS 144, this entails in-class student presentations on the same topics. Faculty lectures also include information on sustainability as related to the Baja California environment. The field section of the course, conducted abroad, gives students the opportunity to experience the ecologies they have studied beforehand during class sessions. http://scu.edu/studyabroad/baja/

also see: http://www.scu.edu/immersions