The six million-acre Adirondack StatePark will serve as a classroom for SUNY-ESF students participating in a residential semester, set to launch this fall.

The program, called Understanding the Park, will offer eight to 15 students a hands-on learning experience at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s Newcomb Campus in the model ecosystem of the Adirondack park.

“Our college has been involved with this park longer than anyone else, and we’d like to use it as a real opportunity to provide students with exposure, skills and knowledge,” said Paul Hai, program coordinator for ESF’s Northern Forest Institute in Newcomb, N.Y.

The park serves as a perfect destination for the program, Hai said, adding that it is “literally unparalleled.” Throughout the fall, students will be immersed within this completely balanced ecosystem.

The program itself will offer a hands-on approach to students studying social science or public policy who are looking to better understand the balance between humanity and science, he said.

Many factors contributed to the development of the program, especially the shift in thinking among global leaders toward a sustainable future, Hai said. This makes hands-on experience with sustainability valuable in global political decisions.

Hai said the program aims to answer questions about the balance and distribution of power, including who holds power in the global community and who is left out.

To answer these questions, Hai said students will take five courses:

• The first course will invite students to explore sustainability, challenging them to look at areas where sustainability has or has not been applied, and set goals accordingly. It will include traditional readings and discussion, as well as direct cooperation with relevant organizations and agencies.

• The second course will be a hands-on experience that will expose students to natural sciences and teach them to collect data, ultimately developing a tool for decision-making.

• The third course will focus on ethics and the truth behind who has a global voice and who does not.

• The fourth course will focus on the creation of sustainable business models.

• The fifth course will allow students to utilize their accumulated knowledge and design their own management plan as to how land should be utilized to protect natural resources.

The semester concludes with the presentation of the students’ management plans to the various organizations and agencies they have worked with throughout the semester.

While a student is exposed to indirect experience in these fields within a classroom, the staff of Understanding the Park is confident it can deliver this experience in a whole new and complete way, Hai said.

“The best analogy I can give is a cookbook,” he said. “You can read and really understand how to make something, but until you get your hands on the plate, it doesn’t all come together.”

For example, instead of reading about the amphibian population, Hai said, students will have their hands in the pools.

Registration for Understanding the Park will begin April 8.

“Sign up quick” Hai said. “You really couldn’t imagine a better place to spend a semester.”

Published on February 18, 2013 at 12:44 am

Contact Jesse: jlnich02@syr.edu