Geography: Ecuador: Reading Grass Paramo

Field course abroad. Intensive study of the geography of a country or region, with attention to related issues. May be repeated for credit with different content. Topics vary by offering; periodic offering at intervals that may exceed four years. Prerequisites: Minimum Sophomore standing; Instructor permission.

Spring break travel course; OIE GoAbroad App Deadline: 11/18/2024; In-country dates 3/8/2025-3/15/2025; Location: Ecuador; Instructor permission required; Program fee $1,141 minus $450 deposit; Airfare is additional; Tuition may be additional; Open to degree and PACE students

This Spring Break travel course will examine the origin and persistence of grass páramo, a high-elevation Andean savanna. Páramo covers extensive areas of the tropical Andes in an altitudinal belt between the tree line and the snowline. Despite its remoteness and wilderness aspect, evidence suggests that the development of grass páramo was driven by human intervention, and in particular hunter-gatherer fire beginning in the late Pleistocene. Readings will examine three data sets that elucidate the process of grass páramo formation: fossil pollen, sedimentary charcoal, and evidence of early hunter-gatherer occupation. The course will then assess how these data support or refute the conventional wisdom that grass páramo is a purely climatic expression or, as argued more recently, the replacement vegetation of a zonal forest removed by early agriculturalists. This course earns 3 credits. It is offered through Geography and cross-listed with Global and Regional Studies and Environmental Studies, but open to students from all disciplines. By the end of the course, students will have a deeper appreciation of humans as a keystone species in grass páramo creation and maintenance. They will have applied the lessons of páramo etiology to an enlightened management and conservation of Ecuadorian páramos. Concurrently, students will have developed a sensibility to the weight of history on contemporary vegetation, and to the ubiquitous but sometimes elusive nature of anthropic inputs.

Grading will be based on (i) an introductory exam that reviews pre-travel readings, and that is given after our páramo excursion in Cajas National Park (30%); (ii) participation in the field observations and discussions during hikes and excursions, including a short essay on the paramo experience (40%); and (iii) a final exam (30%), prior to the return to the U.S.