During junior year, most students spend much of their time sitting in a library, studying and reading. But not all Princetonians are stressing over junior papers this semester — some are in Panama as part of a program in the ecology and evolutionary biology department.
Each spring, the EEB department, in conjunction with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, offers a semester-long study abroad program in Gamboa near Panama City.
The main goal of the program is "to give the students an opportunity to do the hands-on experiments in the field, which they don't get at Princeton," said Jon Paul Rodriguez, a post-doctorate associate at Princeton and one of the program's lecturers.
The course, which runs for 12 weeks from January to April, consists of four sections — three in the natural sciences and one in social science. Students study tropical biology, pre-Columbian people of tropical America and their environment, neo-tropical ornithology and tropical conservation biology. Thus far, this semester's participants, who are living in an old dormitory-style schoolhouse in Panama, have studied the first two sections of the syllabus.
Students said the main advantage of studying in Panama is the firsthand experience they get from field work.
"Being at Panama is fascinating because we can apply everything we learn as opposed to just sitting there and reading a textbook," Oliver Stroeh '01 said. "For example, instead of just memorizing what the optimal foraging theory is from a book, we can actually test it out for ourselves. We addressed this issue by finding out when squash was domesticated from the wild, and from this we could see the difference between foraging and the development of domestic agriculture," he continued. "Doing these types of studies adds a realistic dimension to the studies."
'Consultants'
During their section on tropical biology, the students worked with an organization called the Panamanian Center for Research and Social Action — whose Spanish acronym is CEASPA — in order to research eco-tourism.
The site that was chosen for their research, Fort Sherman, was once a training camp for jungle fighting in the army, Rodriguez said. "There are no people in it because it is so isolated from human dwelling, so it is an absolutely fantastic forest area."
The students' research was divided into several sections, Rodriguez explained. "First, we estimate the abundance of animals which tourists might be interested to look at — for example Howler Monkey and Coatimundies — and then we make maps directing the eco-tourists to where they are," he said.
"Then we assess the needs and interests of these eco-tourists and how to best integrate it into the area," Rodriguez added. "Eco-tourism interests might include recreation, scientific research, the conservation of the wildlife and also actions to increase the quality of life for the local inhabitants. We want to make sure that a big proportion of the funds goes back to the local inhabitants."
Because of its spatial isolation, Fort Sherman is vulnerable to wildlife poaching, Rodriguez explained. The students, along with CEASPA coordinator Charlotte Elton, will conduct interviews and surveys to assess the different environmental dangers for Fort Sherman, and they will then develop measures to safeguard the area.
The final aim for these aspiring Princeton "consultants" is to "train them to be a future generation of tropical biologists to take care of these places," Rodriguez said.
Ann Coates '01 considers this section of the syllabus insightful because it helped her to appreciate the significance of rain forests. "Rain forests are so important because they provide trees which reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, so that we can have oxygen to breathe," Coates said. "However, whenever we cut down the rain forests, we are not only depleting our own oxygen levels, but the amount of carbon dioxide in the air becomes toxic to us. There are actions in the U.S. which are cutting down rain forests for pasture, which is wonderful if you eat beef, but not so wonderful because, in the long run, it is cutting down our opportunity to breathe."
"Plus, we need to preserve the large diversity of species in the rain forests," she added. "So the most important thing is to educate everyone at home about the need to preserve rain forests."
Digging for treasure
For both Stroeh and Coates, the most memorable project occurred during the second part of the syllabus — the section that covered pre-Columbian people — when they went on archeological digs in the locale of Chitre. There, they found human bones, fish bones, arrowheads and even "a skeleton of a 6 to 7 year-old child" that dated back 2,200 years.
Katie Arkema '00, an EEB major who went on the Panama trip last year, found a "secondary burial packet" in one of her digs. "This is when they had buried the body once already, and then after the body had decomposed, they dig it up and align the bones on top of each other with the skull on top, making a sort of ceremonial burial packet," she explained.
Arkema said she particularly enjoyed working with her two professors, Stephen Hubbell and Steve Pacala, who is now her senior thesis adviser. "It was a much less intimidating setting than at Princeton, and there weren't so many distractions from other sources like there would be on campus. In Panama, we were solely focussed on biology, and that was it."
Arkema's most memorable experiment in Panama was a large-scale project involving eight people, in which her group observed the competition over resources between the territorial damsel fish and the roving parrot fish. "We all went snorkeling in the water, and then we had to develop different methods to see if the parrot fish was still able to eat food within territory belonging to the damsel fish," she recounted.
"Scott [Hamilton '00] and Jameal [Samhouri '00] marked out the path of the parrot fish as they swam, and I had to count how many times a damsel fish would come and hit the parrot fish, which would signify a measure of aggression," she said. "Another one of us would measure the percentage of parrot fish who still fed themselves despite being in 'hostile territory,' and then another person would drop bright pink nails at 15-second intervals, three meters behind the school of parrot fish, so that we could measure their velocity in the water."
Except for the occasional gripe about the lack of organization with some activities — "you really need to be flexible and open-minded when you're doing this type of thing," Stroeh said — the students strongly recommend this experience. "Besides," Stroeh added, "it's always sunny and we got to go to San Blas [an archipelago off the coast of Panama] for Spring Break — the Caribbean is great."
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