The School for Field Studies (SFS) offers experiential study abroad programs for primarily college undergraduates at field stations in Costa Rica, Australia, Kenya, Tanzania, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Baja California, Mexico. Each center has a different environmental focus, ranging from marine resource conservation to wildlife management to tropical rainforest studies. In Costa Rica, the focus is on sustainable development, and students gain hands-on experience in field research, conservation, and community-based development.

SFS Costa Rica students live at the Center for Sustainable Development Studies in Atenas, a small city in the central highlands, about 45 minutes from the capital city, San José. The Center is located on a hillside overlooking the Río Grande Valley a couple of miles from the center of town. Students live in dormitories and attend classes in the Center’s indoor and outdoor classrooms, as well as off-site in field locations. They eat in the Center’s dining hall and participate in a wide range of activities and chores, ranging from kitchen duty to gathering eggs from the henhouse to working in the plant nursery and orchard.

Studying with SFS is a life-changing experience for many students. Most have never had an educational experience of this kind, where most of the learning takes place outside a traditional classroom setting. Although students attend lectures in the indoor and outdoor classrooms at the SFS Center, the majority of their time is spent out in the field, conducting research, visiting national parks and other sites, speaking with stakeholders ranging from park managers to the Ministry of Environment to local farmers, and giving back to the local community.

“We’re not only collaborating with the students and the professors who are really invested in what we’re doing. The community is absolutely an integral part of everything we’re learning,” says Helena Manzella, a senior at Muhlenberg College and a student at the SFS Center in Costa Rica. “It’s amazing to be able to actually work with people that are people we wouldn’t be able to come across elsewhere and then, furthermore, to be able to put what we learn into action almost every day.”

Field research is a major part of the SFS curriculum, and much of it is tailored to the needs of the local community. For example, since 2005 SFS has been working with a local coffee producers’ cooperative and has helped three of the nine member farms obtain organic certification. One of these is Finca El Pino, a shade-grown coffee farm located on a steeply sloped hillside not far from Atenas. Run by Gerardo Calderón and his family, El Pino has a particularly close relationships with SFS. For the past year and a half or so, SFS Professor Achim Häger has been conducting research on the environmental benefits of various plants and agroforestry methods. The research gives SFS students hands-on experience with scientific research and sustainable agriculture, and provides information that the Calderóns can use to improve their production.

Another important part of the SFS curriculum is field trips to places such as the Tárcoles River and Carara National Park, on the Pacific Coast by the Gulf of Nicoya. Field trips may include excursions into different ecosystems, field lectures by SFS staff, and visits with local park rangers, government officials, and other local stakeholders. For example, an SFS lecture about water pollution take place not in a classroom but at the mouth of the Tárcoles River, where herons, osprey, egrets, cormorants, and wood storks are just a few of the countless bird species picking their way along a beach littered with plastic bottles, rubber tire tubes, and other trash carried downstream from communities in the central highlands.

At nearby Carara National Park, SFS students conduct research projects that are jointly established according to the park’s needs. Every semester the school holds a symposium at which students present papers or other research that the park can use in its management plans.

When SFS was founded in 1980, one of the key goals was to create environmental literacy in people of all professions, so that they could work together to address environmental issues. This mission remains at the heart of SFS. Students come to the Center for Sustainable Development Studies filled with idealism and passion for solving environmental problems. Through their field experiences they discover just how complicated the issues are and learn how to go about finding solutions that enhance local livelihoods while also conserving biodiversity and natural resources.

Center Director Gerardo Avalos is an ecologist who studied in the United States and completed his PhD research in plant physiology at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, before returning home to his native Costa Rica. He joined SFS after realizing that a pure science degree was less relevant than an interdisciplinary approach to environmental issues.

The work that SFS students do makes a measurable difference in the lives of local farmers, nongovernmental organizations, and government agencies that lack the budget to conduct their own research. At the same time, students develop skills that will serve them well in any profession. “We provide authentic opportunities for research, for community interaction, for people who are basically starting their careers,” says Avalos. “We have the chance to influence very young people that eventually will occupy positions that could be very important for the future of conservation, not only in the tropics, but also in the U.S. and all over the world.”

We disembarked at a beach near the mouth of the river, where the SFS students found seats on driftwood and rocks for an outdoor lecture about pollution of the Tárcoles River basin. This is the essence of SFS programs – experiential, on-site learning that gives students first-hand insight into environmental issues, their causes, and potential solutions. The beach was no pristine swimming beach – it was covered in garbage that had drifted downstream from communities in the Central Highlands. Plastic bottles, rubber tire tubes, and even a couple of dolls’ heads littered the sand. The trash, however, didn’t stop a wealth of birds from congregating in the area around the beach. In addition to the ubiquitous egrets there was a large group of wood storks wandering the beach, several pelicans bobbing in the water, and black and turkey vultures perched in the trees. I even spotted a small colorful bird with a long, unusually shaped tail. Gerardo later identified it from my photo as the turquoise-browed motmot, the national bird of Nicaragua.

After the class on the beach, the SFS students – with our team following in another launch – headed back upstream and then down a side channel that led into the mangrove forest. We disembarked again at a wooden boardwalk, where the students found seats on the platform for another lecture, this one on river and mangrove ecosystems.

Following the lecture, the students headed back to the town of Tárcoles for a picnic lunch on a local beach, where we interviewed a couple of them about the SFS experience. Junior Jay Creech from the University of Southern California and senior Helena Manzella from Muhlenberg College were both enthusiastic about the opportunity to do field research and learn about issues from the people involved, as well as the chance be part of a collaborative community with other students and professors from different disciplines.

After lunch the students went on to Carara National Park for an orientation hike, while we interviewed Giovanny Soto, coordinator of public use programs and interim director of the park. SFS works closely with the national park on research projects that are jointly established according to park needs. Every semester the school holds a symposium at which students present papers or other research that the park can use in its management plans.

Unfortunately we didn’t have time to explore Carara ourselves, as we our time with SFS was coming to an end. Instead, we headed back to Atenas, arriving back in time for a late lunch in the SFS dining hall and a few final minutes of filming. Then our transfer van arrived and we said goodbye to Gerardo and Ola and set off down the road toward new adventures in sustainability at La Cusinga Eco Lodge.

After shooting downtown for an hour or so, we arrived back at the Center for Sustainable Development Studies in time for a late lunch in the dining hall, followed by an interview with Director Gerardo Avalos. We were filming an introduction to SFS with Ola Russell at the main gate to the Center when the SFS students returned from a field trip to San José. Of course filming a documentary is never a matter of just pointing a camera at the subject, pressing record, and being done with it. I had no idea before joining the team just how many takes would be required to get things right. Between fumbled words, background noises, distracting insects, and other interruptions, filming introductions and interviews was often quite a lengthy process. After several attempts, Rob and Ola finally got the introduction nailed down – only to have the student bus drive up, engines rumbling, back from a field trip to San José. So much for that successful take! Eventually, however, the introduction was completed, and the guys moved on to filming the students in class and doing various farming chores around the Center.

With all the students back at the Center, dinner that evening was a lively affair. Afterward, many of the students headed into town to participate in a soccer match with local residents – just one of the many ways in which SFS students have the opportunity to interact informally with the Atenas community.

At the farm, Gabriel Calderón (son of Gerardo) took us on a tour of the plantation. Hiking the trail on the steeply sloped hillside was like entering a special kind of jungle. The Calderóns have chosen to grow a diversity of plants that goes well beyond the requirements for organic certification. In addition to providing shade for coffee plants, the other trees and bushes protect against erosion and attract beneficial insects that pollinate the coffee plants.

After our tour through the coffee plants, Gabriel and his father demonstrated how they sift and process the coffee “cherries” before bagging them for sale. Our visit ended with typical Costa Rican hospitality as Gerardo’s wife, Sole, served us homemade bread and lemonade. Ryan – the only coffee-drinking member of our team – also sampled the farm’s coffee and pronounced it delicious.

SFS operates unique experiential study abroad programs for college undergraduates through its five field stations in Costa Rica, Mexico, Australia, Kenya, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Each center has a different environmental focus. SFS programs provide students with hands-on learning opportunities in field research, conservation, and community-based development. In Costa Rica, students live in dormitories at the Center for Sustainable Development Studies and attend classes in the Center’s indoor or outdoor classrooms, as well as off-site in field locations. We stayed in the dormitory’s intern wing and took most of our meals in the Center’s dining hall with the students.

When we arrived at SFS we were met by Gerardo Avalos, the director of the Costa Rica program, and by Ola Russell, who had flown down from the school’s head office in Massachusetts in order to facilitate our visit. They gave us a tour of the Center’s grounds, including the orchard, organic garden, and chicken coop – all places where students have opportunities to participate in sustainable farming activities.