Eastern Student Lia Spencer Dupret of Praia Completes Global Field Course to Costa Rica

2016 Jul 13

The Office of Continuing Studies and Enhanced Learning at Eastern offers Global Field Courses throughout the academic year. The programs offer the opportunity to earn at least three credits while traveling with an Eastern faculty member.

Studying in a remote location from campus is a great way to experience a new culture and serves to expand your view of the world and develop real life skills.

In May, a group of Eastern biology students accompanied Biology Professors Patricia Szczys and Matthew Graham on a global field course trip to Costa Rica.

Lia Spencer Dupret '18 of Praia was one of the students who went on the trip. Spencer Dupret's major is Biology.

The students had spent the spring semester in groups of three and four students, each reading scientific literature and preparing research proposals for studies they would conduct in the field while in Costa Rica. During six days in the humid lowland rainforest at Selva Verde, they completed experiments on leaf-cutter ant foraging strategies; predator recognition and avoidance behavior by the strawberry poison-dart frog; effectiveness of aposematic warning colors and patterns in snakes; and population density and sex ratio of the green and black poison-dart frog.

Aside from these projects, the group spent time hiking, observing animals and identifying plants there are part of the rich biodiversity of the tropical rainforest. The night hikes were especially exciting. The group visited the world-renowned La Selva Biological Research Station; toured an organic export-oriented pineapple plantation; hiked the lava fields at Arenal Volcano National Park and then bathed in the park's hot springs. They also toured the Don Juan coffee plantation and hiked to the Continental Divide in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve.

The Tropical Biology course and field trip to Costa Rica is offered in alternating spring semesters and fulfills an upper-level course requirement for Biology majors. This class, along with its sister course, Tropical Biology in San Salvador, Bahamas, continues as a Biology Department tradition since 1968 in terms of offering an annual international field experience in the tropics. Professor Szczys has been leading groups to Costa Rica since it replaced Belize as the terrestrial-focused course in 2008.