New Mexico Field Trip for ESPP Concentrators
January 2015 * Sevilleta Field Station * South-Central N.M.

During the upcoming winter-session, the ESPP Program will offer an undergraduate field trip from January 14-21, 2015 to the U.N.M. Sevilleta Field Station on a National Wildlife Refuge near Socorro, New Mexico. Participants will actively conduct ecological studies, especially of human-imprinted areas, and accomplish a small-team land-use planning project.  Knowledgeable visitors, presentations, student analyses, and special activities complement the morning/afternoon field experiences.

Characteristic Activities
Brief research projects, e.g., on desert habitat heterogeneity, dense wetland wildlife, river floodplain/riparian patterns, animal tracking, and habitat productivity/species diversity/rare species.  Observations/discussions on geology features, grassland cattle-grazing intensities, water management/irrigation, pinyon-juniper woodland, feedlot, road ecology, nightlife, and climate change research.  Conceptual land-use planning that meshes environmental and human goals, including water, agriculture, housing, transportation and wildlife/biodiversity, in and around a N.M. town.

All trip costs, including roundtrip Boston to Albuquerque airfare, will be covered.  Space on the trip is limited; ESPP concentrators receive priority.  Professor Richard Forman, Research Professor of Advanced Environmental Studies in Landscape Ecology (GSD), and Teaching Fellow, Alicia Harley ESPP ’08, will lead the trip.  Other ESPP faculty hope to join for part of the trip.  We stay in modern adobe buildings surrounded by desert, grassland, mountains, and the Rio Grande.

Application deadline: October 20, 2014.  Trip website: http://bit.ly/1B7YnQB

Questions?  
Contact Lorraine Maffeo, maffeo@fas.harvard.edu or Alicia Harley, harley@post.harvard.edu.