Application due March 25, 2016
The Natural Areas Conservancy is collaborating with the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences at Brooklyn College CUNY, the Science and Resilience Institute @ Jamaica Bay and the National Park Service to conduct ecological assessments in Jamaica Bay this summer. Through Brooklyn College’s recently funded CUNY Strategic Initiative a new experiential course Environmental Field Investigations (EESC 7903) in Jamaica Bay is being offered Summer Session 1, May 31 – June 24 followed by an eight-week paid internship July 5 – August 26.
The Brooklyn College Environmental Investigations Field course will provide CUNY students with an overview of the integrated practices and approaches used in the environmental sciences in support of urban watershed and aquatic resource management. The course will be topically based and will consider the various demands placed on Jamaica Bay and other NYC parklands, by human use (i.e. land use practices, water resource management, and socioeconomic development) as well as management approaches and policies for balancing these demands with ecosystem health, functionality, and resilience. The topics covered in this class are aligned with five focus areas: (1) ecosystem characterization, (2) ecological processes, (3) hydrological processes, (4) human dimensions, and (5) data management and modeling. Students will also be participating in a problem-based learning (PBL) activity that will require them to integrate what they learned within these five focus areas towards addressing a local environmental issue. The PBL activity also provides an opportunity for students to hone their collaboration and communication skills- both highly valuable job-training skills. The paid field immersion internship will take place in the remaining eight weeks of summer 2016 with up to 30 students working in the field with the Natural Areas Conservancy (NAC) ecologists and data managers in Jamaica Bay where they will apply the concepts they learned in the Brooklyn College Environmental Investigations Field course.
CUNY students enrolled in the internship will learn the field methods and protocols developed by the NAC including state-of-the-art data collection applications, geographical placement systems, and ecological sampling techniques. This valuable learning opportunity will give CUNY students the needed skills they can carry into their professional career while contributing to a real-world, far-reaching research project.
