The Class of 2008

This is an intensive, hands-on field course, offered through Nova South-eastern University, designed for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. Participants travel to Australia and study on a live aboard dive vessel, visiting a number of reefs amongst the Northern section of the Great Barrier Reef. In addition to the two weeks spent at the reef, students will travel to other Australian World Heritage sites on land, including the Cape Tribulation area, Atherton Tablelands and rainforests, and the Undara volcanic lava tubes. The course instructors are Dr. James Darwin Thomas, a former Curator at the Smithsonian, now with Nova South-eastern University Oceanographic Centre in Ft. Lauderdale and Mick Fogg, a James Cook University graduate with twenty years experience in research, education and tourism on the Great Barrier Reef.

Course Philosophy: This course incorporates an intensive, academically rigorous approach designed to provide students with an integrated understanding of reef ecology. With access to a number of locations in protected marine areas provides access to an unequalled classroom setting. A typical day involves lecture, snorkelling, field write-ups, oral presentations, and compilation of faunal and trips lists and daily updates of the website.

Students also benefit from the travel experience itself, meeting new people from a different country. For many students this course is remembered as the most significant experience of their university career.

One of the objectives of the course is to provide up-to-the-minute updates of the course activities on the Great Barrier Reef, including still footage taken on the reef, along with accompanying descriptive text. This will enable interested students and scientists to experience some of the daily activities and excitement of the course. The intent is to post images and log files of daily excursions so people can get an idea how a course like this is structured and what students do and learn on a daily basis.