This is the home-site for Field Ecology, a program at the Evergreen State College!  Our current program s being offered as a year-long program in 2010/11.

This program focuses on intensive group and individual field research in current topics in ecology. Students intensively use the primary literature and student-driven field research to address observations about ecological composition, structure, and function in natural environments. Independent and group research projects in relevant natural settings form the core of our curriculum. In the past our program has ranged from the South Puget Sound to the Southwestern US. In 2008, our program had three distinct research sites ranging from the South Puget Sound prairies to the east side of the North Cascades (the Sinlahekin Wildlife Area near Loomis, WA). In 2010 (Spring) Our program once again conducted research at Glacial Heritage Prairie and Preserve (WA), The Grand Canyon (AZ), and Mt Rose (WA Olympic Mountains). In all Field Ecology programs, research projects are quickly developed, and expanded on, in a fast-paced, big-ideas, constructive environment, where the course forms a community working to make each project better. Research projects presentations and writing workshops build these ideas into workable products to share with the outside world. Science is a creative endeavor at its core, and we capitalize on that by focusing on application of new ideas in a synergistic interdisciplinary environment.

In 2008 and 2010 (Spring) we focused on plants. This year (2010 Fall-2011 Spring) we will again focus on both Ornithology (Birds) and Plant ecology. Our work has engaged community ecology, ecosystem ecology, physiology and plant-herbivore interactions, and trophic interactions. Topics of study in all programs include forest structure, ecological restoration; riparian ecology; fire history; ethnobotany; insect-plant interactions; disturbance ecology; and the broad fields of biocomplexity and ecological interactions. These topics and student projects are crystallized through paper-writing workshops in which group and individual papers are be produced. We emphasize identification of original field research problems in diverse habitats, experimentation, data analyses, oral presentation of findings, and writing in journal format.