ABSTRACT
Field trips are vital components of professional education. The goal of field trips is to prepare graduates to be broad-based problem-solvers for sustainable management of natural resources in the common interest. Field trips are ideal vehicles to aid development of the kind of professional needed in today’s complex and dynamic natural resources environment. For field trips to be successful, students must actively exercise their skills in thinking, observation, management, and technical subjects, in integration of diverse knowledge and experience, and in applying their judgments in applied contexts. We describe a 10 day field trip to the Panama Canal Watershed in March, 1998, to assist policymakers and managers administer natural resources. The 17 students on the field trip came from diverse backgrounds including from 182countries in Central America and Indonesia, Peace Corps experience, and other practical experiences. The Canal Watershed supplies all water for canal operations and drinking water for many Panamanians. The Watershed shows all resource conflicts that characterized upland forested watersheds in many countries. Pre-trip preparations are described, as is the field trip itself to numerous sites involving many discussions, to post-trip activities and reports. A basic analytic framework was used to investigate each resource case students studied (e.g., biodiversity conservation, park management, watershed planning). The framework is comprised of a comprehensive set of conceptual categories dealing with people involved in each case, their perspectives, the situation (including biogeographic and ecological features), values, strategies, outcomes, and effects. This framework is described and illustrated in an Appendix. Five recommendations are made to facilitate successful field trips. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1- 800-342-9678. E-mail address: getinfo@haworthpressinc.com <Website: https://www. haworthpressinc. com>]
