The UVM Field Studies in Costa Rica program is offered in both fall and spring semesters. 

Full for Spring 2025 program. Now interviewing for Fall 2025! Email uvmcostarica@uvm.edu to set up an interview and learn more.

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Prosperity and Biodiversity in the Tropics: Challenges of Sustainability in Costa Rica

The semester takes place in Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula, described by National Geographic as one of the most “biologically intense” places on our planet. While there, students learn about sustainable development, tropical ecology, and rural livelihoods by living, working, and studying alongside local communities, academics, organizations, and cooperative organizations.

The first 2.5 weeks of the semester are taken online learning theoretical content and preparing for the semester on the ground. Students spend their first week in Costa Rica traveling in the capital, San Jose, meeting with global and national leaders ranging from climate change negotiators, politicians, members of the World Economic Forum, and local activists.

After San Jose, the course moves to Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula. Through field-based labs, community-identified service-learning projects, readings, and presentations, students work to truly embark on a journey from understanding to action, by combining academic content with real world experiences visiting and working with:

• Government agencies
• Local farmers practicing commercial forms of agriculture as well as agroecology
• Local and national non-profit agencies
• Indigenous communities
• National parks and private reserves
• Grassroots community development and social justice projects
• Marine and Terrestrial Wildlife Research, Rescue, and Rehabilitation programs   
• Landscape-level ecological restoration projects

All courses are for UVM credit. To determine the applicability of these courses to your school/college degree requirements, speak with your academic advisor.

In theory and practice, sustainability can be expressed differently depending on ideological, political, academic or normative commitments. In this four credit course, students will study, analyze, and apply frameworks from local communities and the biophysical and social sciences. This will be done in the classroom, in the field, and alongside leaders and community partners in Costa Rica. Students visit, study, and work with a variety of grassroots, national, and international organizations with the goal of understanding and contributing to sustainability and development initiatives.

This three credit course focuses on how the people of the Osa Peninsula can become integrated with local, regional, national, and global economies in a way that maintains local control and preserves the environment on which they rely for their livelihoods. Some themes explored in this course include community-based research, rapid and participatory rural appraisal, commodity agricultural production, direct foreign investment, centralized government initiatives, and local entrepreneurial business development.

This four-credit course provides the biological science counterpart to the Rural Livelihoods class. It introduces students to tropical forest ecology by focusing on the physical structure, species richness, and species interactions in the lowland tropical rainforest ecosystem of the Osa Peninsula. Using a combination of lectures and fieldwork, students will gain extensive, first-hand experience with the rich biological diversity that supports livelihoods in the region and beyond.

This three-credit course applies ecosystem management principles to the complex and changing array of challenges in the Osa Peninsula region. Course content is combined with onsite experiences to integrate principles of sustainability and tropical ecology with peoples’ land use practices on the Osa Peninsula. Students will holistically explore themes such as: ecosystem health, integrity, and degradation; transboundary issues, human needs, and values and behaviors; and the application of management principles considering diverse perspectives and livelihoods.

This four-credit course serves as the integrative capstone experience for the semester abroad program. During the semester, students have been introduced to local organizations, the dynamics of sustainable development in Costa Rica, the political economy of rural development, principles of tropical ecology, and the variety of integrated approaches to sustainable land use and management. The goal of this course is to provide a platform for integration and problem-solving where students draw from the depth of knowledge they’ve gained and apply it to a specific sustainable development project on the Osa Peninsula. Students will work on a variety of community-identified service-learning projects such as GIS mapping, environmental education, community-based wildlife monitoring, agroecology, food systems, and protected area management to name a few.

• All students are required to interview and submit an application via GoAbroad.
• Students must be accepted to the program after an interview and be in good academic standing with UVM with a minimum GPA of 2.5.
• This program is open to sophomores, juniors, seniors, and second-semester seniors of ALL MAJORS. Preference is given to students with junior and senior standing.
  • This program awards UVM academic credit, meaning transcripts are available upon program completion. This makes participating in the program during a senior spring semester possible.

For more information on Tuition, Financial Aid Eligibility, and the application process, visit go.uvm.edu/uvmcostarica.