A Semester in Moorea, French Polynesia

Students who enroll in Integrative Biology 158 often find themselves in the most unusual of situations, such as dealing with rays. That's because most of their semester is spend doing fieldwork at the UC Berkeley Gump Field Station on the island of Moorea in French Polynesia.

Students in the class spend 9 weeks on the island becoming familiar with tropical marine and terrestrial ecology, systematics, environmental sciences, geology, zoology, and botany, followed by extensive original research projects. Projects include studies of fish, birds, corals, snails, cyanobacteria, ferns, trees, pineapple and No-no plantations, pollution, stream and marine ecology, reproductive biology of plants, and a host of other research projects of the students' own choosing. Faculty and Graduate Student Assistants come from IB and ESPM.

IB 158 ("Biology and Geomorphology of Tropical Islands") is cross-listed with ESPM 107, Geography 142, and IDS 158.

Jack Penkethman photo