Shasta College Students Travel To Honduras For Learning and Research As Part Of College Course

This June and July, over 50 community members from the Redding area, consisting mostly of students and educators from Shasta College, University Preparatory High School, and Shasta High School are traveling to Honduras to assist with biodiversity research in both cloud forest and coral reef ecosystems.  This amazing opportunity has been organized through Shasta College and Operation Wallacea (OpWall), an organization that runs a series of biological and conservation management research programs in remote locations across the world.

This Shasta College course, the Natural History of the Neotropics, which includes four weeks of online learning with the two-week lab experience in Honduras is a four-credit, fully transferable course that both high school and college students can take to cover a portion of their General Education requirements in the sciences. Shasta College instructor Dr. Susannah Johnson-Fulton explains, “Students will be actively involved in collecting data that will be published in peer-reviewed journals and will help to preserve/conserve species in these biodiverse ecosystems.” Students will gain first-hand experience in research subjects that span animal behavior, forest ecology, terrestrial invertebrates, fisheries, amphibian and reptile ecology, general marine ecology including reef systems, spatial ecology using GIS, environmental science, conservation management, and much more. Dr. Johnson-Fulton expounded on the benefit of the class and lab saying, “This experience will also greatly strengthen our students’ resumes, giving them a huge step-up in any career and/or education path they choose.”  This science-based, study abroad course is the first of many that Shasta College plans to offer, with future courses going to different locations, such as Indonesia, Madagascar, Greece, China, Peru, Dominica, Cuba, and the Galapagos. For more information on how you can be involved in next year's program as a participant or as a donor to help support students, please email Susannah Johnson-Fulton at sfulton@shastacollege.edu and/or Randy Reed at rreed@shastacollege.edu.

To help afford this amazing experience many students worked hard at a number of fundraising efforts and applied for scholarships. Special recognition and thanks go to The McConnell Foundation and the Shasta College Foundation for the substantial number of scholarships awarded to many of these students. Many of these students have also been active members of Shasta College Global Expeditions Club, a new campus club that focuses on community outreach, fundraising, and organizing hiking and backpacking trips to help prepare students for their future expeditions.

Since the group going to Honduras this summer is so large, it has been divided into two groups. One group is already in the field with Randy Reed and will return July 1st and the second group will be leaving for Honduras with Susannah Johnson-Fulton June 29 and will return July 16. Watch for updates, photos, and videos of what these local students are experiencing in the rainforests and coastal reefs of Honduras on the following website: www.shastacollege.edu/honduras2015

Both Randy and Susannah feel very strongly about experiential education – getting students out of a classroom setting and experiencing what they are learning about first-hand. Randy Reed, an Earth Science professor at Shasta College, teaches college courses such as geology, ancient life, and oceanography. Professor Reed shares his love of earth sciences by connecting with the community and getting his students out into the field whenever possible. Susannah Johnson-Fulton has a doctorate in botany and teaches botany, biology, and natural history at Shasta College. Dr. Johnson-Fulton has traveled extensively and is passionate about the positive impact the combination of traveling internationally, making cultural connections, and learning about the natural world by conducting field work can have on individuals, especially those just figuring out who they are and what they believe in and those wanting to make a difference in the world.

Operation Wallacea (OpWall) is an organization, funded by tuition fees, that runs a series of biological and conservation management research programs in remote locations across the world. These expedition sites are designed with specific wildlife conservation aims in mind – from identifying areas needing protection, through implementing and assessing conservation management programs. All sites are associated with graduate and post-graduate level research and OpWall, though this program, is directly responsible for numerous invertebrate and vertebrate species discoveries. The OpWall program researchers publish in peer-reviewed journals and are associated with the United Nations Reductions in Emissions and Deforestation and Degradation (“REDD+”) whose goals are to support conservation through sustainable management of forests and the facilitation of forest carbon sequestration.