Date

Summer Program Announcement
California State University
Alaska Wildlands Studies Program
The Wrangell Mountains Center
Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska
22 June - 10 August 2009

Application Deadline: Friday, 15 May 2009

For further information, please go to:
http://www.wrangells.org/aws.html

Or contact:
Jeremy Pataky
Email: jeremy [at] wrangells.org
Phone: 907-554-4454


The Wrangell Mountains Center announces a summer program announcement.
The program, offered by the California State University Alaska Wildlands
Studies Program, is seven weeks of intensive summer fieldwork amid the
peaks, glaciers, meadows, and forests of the Wrangells wilderness.

Participants earn 12 semester units (18 quarter units) of transferable,
upper division college credit and study. Through rigorous natural
history observation, writing, science and the arts, students explore
geological, ecological, and cultural processes that shape the Wrangell
Mountains. Program time is divided between backpacking and camping in
the backcountry and basing at the Wrangell Mountains Center in the
historic, tiny town of McCarthy in the middle of the park. 2009
celebrates the twenty-seventh year of Wildlands Studies courses in
Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve.

Using an interdisciplinary approach of rigorous natural history
observation and experimental investigation, students will consider the
interrelated geological, ecological, and social processes that shape the
Wrangell Mountains, including their implications for public policy.
Throughout, students will develop and sharpen their skills in
scientific, creative, and interpretive writing and in critical thinking.
Techniques for nature observation and study, including drawing,
illustration, and the collection of detailed field notes will be
emphasized in journal exercises. There will be opportunity for essay
writing, poetry, and the visual arts. While considering the Wrangell
Mountains from a variety of perspectives, participants will integrate
observations into a wider framework of social and ecological concerns.

Program strengths include diverse faculty with many years experience in
the Wrangells, opportunities for collaborative research, and its base
within an active community of scholars and artists at The Wrangell
Mountains Center, the environmental institute in McCarthy. Within the
broad curriculum, participants can choose to emphasize earth sciences,
ecology, writing and the arts, all with faculty support.

Detailed information about this and other programs is available at the
Wrangell Mountains Center website: http://www.wrangells.org.

For further information, please contact:
Jeremy Pataky
Email: jeremy [at] wrangells.org
Phone: 907-554-4454