To fully understand efforts to protect sea turtles and other tropical animals, it's useful to visit a place like Costa Rica and meet the people involved. It's even more helpful to be guided by experts in both the fields of biology and psychology/sociology, as a group of Cornell students were in 2011.
In Case Studies in Tropical Wildlife Conservation, students studied several conservation projects from a zoological perspective to better understand sea turtles, amphibians, and other species. Meanwhile, their counterparts in Environmental Psychology: The Costa Rican Prototype looked at the same projects through a social science lens to better understand the factors that drive humans towards choices that either harm or help wildlife.
The two courses shared materials and their findings, aiming to develop a rich, interdisciplinary understanding of wildlife issues in Costa Rica. Taylor Tvede was enrolled in the biology section of the trip and shared her thoughts.
