University of San Diego
AC-5: Immersive Experience

1. Students in Environmental and Ocean Sciences have spent full semesters abroad at programs designed and implemented by the School for Field Studies. Recent examples include participation in the programs in Peru, Costa Rica, Turks and Caicos Islands, Cambodia, and Tanzania. For all of these programs, the core issues included sustainable development, wildlife management, ecological resilience, and environmental justice. Class and research projects centered on environmental aspects (water use, pollution, sustainable growing practices) as well as sociological/cultural issues. 2. All majors in Environmental and Ocean Sciences take EOSC 301 Research Application which combines lecture, field and lab work with a direct, real-world integrated course with students collecting and analyzing a whole suite of data (biology, chemistry, geology) that has become a long-term study of an impacted urban ecosystem. The whole class connects real data with real solutions. 3. In the Spring 2024 semester, the Environmental and Ocean Sciences department offered a course titled Coral Reefs and Climate Change (EOSC 494), which included a week-long field trip in San Salvador, Bahamas over spring break. The field trip provided a real-world application of classroom studies addressing the ways that coral reefs serve as a proxy for climate change and how current and future human impacts on reefs can be mitigated in the future.