State University of New York at Oswego
AC-5: Immersive Experience

The Office of Sustainability offers multiple internships to students on campus. These internships give students hands-on experience in their respective fields of study, including: Studio Arts, Graphic Arts, Global Studies, Creative Writing, Accounting, Technology, and Biology. Interns work to develop and maintain campus-wide sustainability initiatives and programs.

The Office of International Education and Programs offers a variety of travel programs. Several of these including ones that go to Ecuador, South Africa, Brazil and Tanzania have explicit elements related to sustainability. The course description for one of these trip (Ecuador) follows: This course examines the notion of development, sustainable development, and the conservation challenges in Ecuador. During the Oswego portion of the course students will critically examine the notion of development and how it has been put into practice in Ecuador. The second portion of the course takes place in Ecuador. We will spend three nights in Quito, Ecuador’s capital, where we will examine issues of urban development, including the provision of clean drinking water and housing for the urban population. From Quito we travel to the parish of Santa Rosa de Naranjal, a small community that seeks sustainable development solutions. We will work there with Fundación Semilla Ambiental. The organization focuses on both social and environmental sustainability. The foundation is a collaboration among specialists in diverse fields, including biology, economy, tourism, environmental education, solid waste management, and business administration. The foundation’s ecosystem approach seeks to develop alternatives to conserve the natural environment and its biodiversity, and to create local sources of work that will improve the lives of those living in the community.