For some, the two-week trip is the longest stretch of time they’ve ever spent in nature.
Western students are exploring Algonquin Park, the Adirondack Mountains and even destinations as far as Belize and Taiwan through field research courses this summer.
The trips provide on-the-ground education to expand their skills and knowledge.
“Field courses are important because they give you an emotional connection. Even as scientists, we’re not only connected to facts. For me, the ultimate value is they get in touch with nature; they fall in love with nature,” Western biology professor Graeme Taylor said.
He took 20 students to a small island off the coast of Belize earlier this summer. He’s now leading another field course in Algonquin Park.
It’s all part of a province-wide program in which Ontario universities offer domestic and international research opportunities. That means students on the trips come not just from Western, but other universities including Guelph, Waterloo and York.
“It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You can’t really recreate that trip without Western and without professor Taylor; his knowledge about the land, the water and all the organisms there is his own, you can’t find it anywhere else,” said Isabella Randell, a fourth-year biology student at Western.
“It’s also great to check things off the bucket list – the Great Blue Hole, swimming with sharks, seeing dolphins, jellyfish, sea turtles.”
Field research builds scientific skills
The trip to Belize focuses on marine conservation. Half Moon Caye island, off the coast of Belize, is the first protected marine area in Central America and is home to thousands of species. Many are endangered and unique, like the red-footed booby bird and a dying coral reef.
“If people see what a coral reef is really like, they’ll fight back against its destruction and devastation,” Taylor said.
Jacob Waite, a health sciences student going into his third year, said seeing damage to the reef up close has stuck with him.
“It doesn’t really hit you until you’re there looking at it,” he said. “You could see the corals were degraded and dying. One of the popular dive sites in Belize looked more like a graveyard.”
The trip to Belize was full of incredible encounters, like the night Waite was diving off the dock, working on a research project, when a nurse shark swam toward him. He said the snorkeling was a highlight.
“It’s just so raw, there are no other people. You’ve got this whole island to explore and the water is just like another world,” he said. “The guide would show us all these animals and this diversity we never would have seen without them. We learned a lot from the people on the island.”
Grace Moir, a fourth-year health sciences student who took the Belize course, was excited to catch a huge queen triggerfish while fishing off the side of a boat packed with students.
“I was smiling ear-to-ear – I don’t normally catch much and this was the biggest fish on our boat,” she said.
The trip was made possible for Moir and Waite by travel awards. Western offers scholarships and grants to make international field research feasible for more students, such as the Global Opportunities Award and the International Learning Award from which Moire and Waite benefited.
It wasn’t all snorkeling and beach volleyball, though, Waite joked. Taylor’s approach to the course made them better researchers, Waite and Moir said.
Taylor said the field research courses are about teaching students to think like scientists. To him, that means learning to ask valuable questions and then figuring out how to answer them in the wild.
Moir described meeting with Taylor to test out a potential topic for the research project each student must complete in Belize.
“You’d sit down with him and share your idea and he’d just hit you with all these questions,” she said. “Even if you thought you knew everything, he would push you beyond that.”
They all keep journals on the species they find while in Belize, from sharks to sea turtles to jellyfish.
“Students love it. It’s like scientific Survivor Man,” Taylor joked.
Participants on the field research trips come from different schools and academic backgrounds. They become a team quickly over the course of their two-week adventures.
Western biology professor Ben Rubin took 20 students to the Adirondack Mountains as part of a course in June. The setting? A research station in the woods.
“When the classroom becomes the subject, that’s a powerful combination.” – Ben Rubin, Western biology professor
Before taking their course to the mountains, students have homework. They must each study one bird and one tree, preparing to present to the rest of the class when they discover it on their daily walks and lessons.
There is a lot to learn – and not just about plant and animal life in the forest, sea and grass.
Real life lessons in the woods, on the beach
“Being unplugged from modern society is an experience they haven’t all had,” said Rubin, who has a background in forest ecology.
“I try to teach stuff you couldn’t learn as well unless you’re there.”
That includes identification of various species, the natural and human history of the Adirondacks and basic field skills like measuring and counting.
It’s the first year international biology field courses have returned after the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
Rubin said it was one of the best groups he’s ever had doing field research. Coupled with warm weather and two significant sightings – including a bald eagle in a nest with its chick and a seagull head, the remnants of the family’s meal – it made for a special trip.
“I didn’t realize how much I missed being there,” Rubin said.
“We had great weather, interested students, and we saw a bear cub, as well as the eagles in their nest.”
Another special animal experience emerged during the nighttime ecology lesson. After Rubin and his group played bird calls on a Bluetooth speaker, two barn owls answered. They didn’t just answer that fake call, though.
“They fought, screaming at each other for an hour,” Rubin said with a chuckle. “I’ve never heard them argue before. To have two respond and carry on all evening, that was really a highlight.”
Both Taylor and Rubin will work with students on the Algonquin trip in August. They probe everything from the logging practices in the park to oxygen levels in the water.
“Most of the population is moving to urban areas, taking jobs in the city, losing familiarity with the forest,” Taylor said.
“People don’t get out into the wilderness. Biodiversity and our forests need to be protected.”
