Courses

Advanced field-intensive course conducted at multiple biological field stations located throughout Costa Rica; exposure to a wide variety of tropical ecological principles using largely observational and some sampling techniques; experience with amazing diversity of wildlife and habitats from hot, humid low land rainforests to the high elevations of the Talamanca páramo…

Production, processing and marketing of coffee, bananas, cacao, mango, cashew, pineapple, coconut and root and tuber crops; recent significant developments in plant breeding and cultural practices. Offered in odd numbered years.

A field-based course exploring the connections between primary producers and organisms that utilize the marine environment; observation, identification, and counting of organisms in tropical marine environments including phytoplankton in coastal waters, coral reefs, seagrass meadows, and mangrove forests.

This course will introduce students to the basic ecology, biology and geology of tropical ecosystems, with a one-week trip to the Florida Keys.

Tropical climatology; structure, evolution, and motion of tropical cyclones; tropical cyclone hazards; large-scale tropical phenomena.

Overview concepts of the dynamics and climatology of the tropics and of significant tropical precipitation systems. Topics also include Kelvin waves, equatorial flows, convective scale dynamics, island meteorology, tropical cyclones, ENSO, radiative-convective equilibrium, and gregarious cloud systems.

This course presents an overview of meteorology in the tropics. The tropical realm is defined and the importance of solar radiation and distribution of temperature, moisture and precipitation in driving tropical weather systems is discussed. The general circulation in the tropics is explored along with seasonal and non-seasonal variations, including the Monsoon and El Nino/La Nina. Certain mesoscale and local circulations common to the tropics are also discussed.

The purpose of this course is to familiarize students with the relevant aspects of tropical ecosystems and tropical plants.

Tropical Weather Discussion is an introductory course in current or recently-active tropical weather systems. This course mainly reviews the structure, behavior, history and potential forecasts of tropical cyclones in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean basins from a meteorological perspective with special emphasis on activity in the Atlantic basin. The course is taught during the Fall Semester because it overlaps with the most active period of the Atlantic Hurricane Season.

Introduces students to principles of troubleshooting and a method of analyzing problems assisting students to better understand aircraft systems and extend the principles to troubleshooting of complex aircraft systems.