Thomas Decker’s Spring Break involved more than laying on a beach.

Decker, an environmental resources engineering major, was one of 12 students who explored the Costa Rican ecosystem during Spring Break through a three-credit course called ERE 311: “Ecological Engineering in the Tropics.” The course, offered through the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, addresses the topic of social, economic and environmental sustainability.

The course included a few homework assignments and formal meetings during the first half of the spring semester, but students learned most from their experiences during Spring Break in Costa Rica, Decker said.

“You are forced to think creatively and forget any boundaries in your mind,” Decker said. “The class is not all about engineering. It’s also about cultural ecology and biology.”

Only three of the 12 students on the trip were engineers, Decker said, adding that many ESF students see it as an opportunity that can be helpful to students with different majors.

It can be challenging for students to go abroad for a semester at ESF because the academic plans for most majors are so rigid, said Emily Quackenbush, ESF coordinator of international education.

“Short-term programs are certainly more convenient in terms of an academic plan,” Quackenbush said. Currently, there are eight ESF students studying abroad for the spring semester, whereas 28 students took short-term academic courses.

This is the first year the ecological engineering class has included a trip to Costa Rica, said Theodore Endreny, professor of the course and chair of the environment resources engineering department.

Endreny started the course in 2003 with a trip to Honduras. Although the class has returned to Honduras every year since, warnings from the U.S. Department of State about political instability and drug trafficking prevented them from returning this year, he said.

Both Costa Rica and Honduras face issues with water, food, energy and hygiene that keep people in a cycle of poverty, he said. Students in the class learn about ways to address these four areas.

Compared to Honduras, Costa Rica has a better economy and provides easier access to preserved ecosystems, Endreny said.

After starting the trip on the coast learning about estuary and mangrove ecosystems, students moved inland to Mastatal Ranch, a sustainable and educational community of 120 people where the students lived for five days, Endreny said. At the ranch, Costa Ricans and U.S. citizens interning there work together to develop agroforestry techniques, or agriculture incorporating the protection and production of trees, he said.

“What we were exposed to there was brilliant,” Endreny said.

Sustainable ovens were one of the main sustainable systems students learned about at the ranch, Endreny said. These ovens were built from resources such as clay, sand and straw. They also used recycled materials such as waste food oils.

Students considered some of the design problems, like too much smoke production, Endreny said.

Endreny said he hopes Mastatal will some day become a field site for graduate and undergraduate students to partake in six-month internships that count for degree credit.

Ian Campbell, a junior civil engineering major at Syracuse University who went on the trip, said he is already considering interning at the ranch next summer.

“There is just so much more that I could learn,” Campbell said, “So I want to go back there and try to absorb as much as I can.”

Published on March 25, 2013 at 12:15 am

Contact Shannon: smhazlit@syr.edu