Searching for that rara avis

Needing to record the time to collect data, Kearns had another student go back to get the wristwatch, by which time the manakin had flown away, forcing Kearns to spend another 30 minutes tracking the bird.

Such research experiences are typical for the 17 University students participating in the "Semester in the Field" program in Panama. Offered through the department of ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB), the program is an intensive immersion experience where students conduct field research and collect data in the Panamanian tropics.

Unlike research in a lab at Princeton, "Out in the field, if you screw up, it's a lot harder to recover," Kearns said in an e-mail. "At least things in lab don't fly away."

Interactive courses

The students are currently in the midst of their second course, "Vertebrate Tropical Biology," taught by EEB professor Martin Wikelski.

Half the students are tracking katydids on Barro Colorado Island, an island in the middle of the Panama Canal, while the rest are tracking bat movement and monitoring gold-collared manakins in the town of Gamboa.

"I think you learn a lot just by making your own mistakes," Wikelski said. "I could easily say, ‘this is what the project is, this is the protocol, these are the columns to fill out,' ... but that would be very boring. The students came up with totally new solutions [and] totally new hypotheses."

"Vertebrate Tropical Biology" is the second of four three-week courses the students will complete by the end of the semester. The first course covered the ecology of coral reefs, taught in Bocas del Toro on the Costa Rican border by EEB professor Stephen Pacala.

The last two courses, which are on tropical biology and pre-Colombian peoples, will be taught by instructors from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). STRI works closely with the program during the semester, offering use of its field sites, research technology, dormitories and schoolhouse.

The 17 students take all the courses together. This year, two students from Germany also joined the University students.

Nate Geller '08, who went to Panama last year, recalls learning to use professional climbing gear and scaling a 30-meter tree in the middle of the night as one of his most memorable experiences.

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"It was pitch black," he said. "As we're climbing, you hear all this rustling in the trees around us, and you can see these bright eyes that are shining all around. There were nocturnal monkeys all around us, 20 to 30 that were really curious about what we were doing."

Aside from the active field research, the learning experience in Panama is different from the experience on campus in that students only take one course at a time and most of the day collecting observations, analyzing data and writing up reports.

"Lectures were once a day in the coral reefs class, usually 8 a.m. at the breakfast table right after our 7 a.m. morning meal, before going out to the field," Anthony Rossettie '09 said in an e-mail, but "[the Vertebrate Tropical Biology] class is more focused on independent work."

A unique opportunity

Research efforts between students and professors are reciprocal. "The students ... have really inquisitive minds, and they have no problem just approaching problems with somewhat a naive mind initially because they don't have a background - that's very constructive," Wikelski said. "Some people close their eyes and ... sort of know it. But the students question all the basics, and it's a very good reality check for the research we're doing here."

The immersion experience has enabled students, professors and TAs to develop relationships beyond the strictly academic. "Professors here are completely different (and way cooler) than those back in Princeton," Rossettie said. "Not to say that professors back there aren't awesome, but here they treat you as peers. Everybody's addressed on a first name basis."

"We've gotten close enough to use ‘Soooo Pacala!' as a catch phrase meaning something ‘scientifically baller,'" Kearns said. "[We] say the phrase ‘Ssoooooo Pacala!' frequently in front of Professor Pacala."

Kearns added that the students ask their TA, Ryan Chisholm GS, to "come hang out with us at night" and ask Pacala to "tell us stories about his family or experiences in Panama when he was younger."

Department chair Dan Rubenstein, one of the program's founders, said the program arose from the realization that "we were better teachers and students ... when we were in the field." Rubenstein, who previously taught the coral reef biology course, said that the program is "really a hands-on, minds-on experience that turns out to be really transformative."

Working outside the laboratory has also forced students to approach their research in a new way, Wikelski said.

"You don't have all the resources you have in Princeton," he said. "You have to be inventive and solve problems everyday. You work with people, and you have to be a good team player."

Eating and sleeping

Though Princeton refunds the students for their semester room and board contracts, the living situation in Panama is far removed from the Gothic architecture of University dorms and the dining options available on campus.

"Chicken, rice, and beans," Rossettie said, are what constitute their daily diets. "A few places have had better variety, but that's the menu 24/7 for many of the places we've been. At least it comes with guava, pineapple, or papaya juice."

The sleeping situations vary depending on their locations. During the final two courses, students will be staying in a schoolhouse, with professors in one room, male students in another and female students in another.

Students also have spotty internet access and phone connections. "Many of us are getting pretty used to communications by Skype-Internet-based phone and webcam chat services," Rossettie said.

Despite the inconveniences, Kearns, who has grown accustomed to sharing a room with up to six other girls, said, "Even though we jokingly complain about the food or living situations, I think we all realize that we have it pretty good here in Panama. ... When traveling from Bocas del Toro to Baru Volcan, we drove through one of the poorest cities in Panama, and for me, it highlighted the fact that I live such a charmed life."

Working friendships

Upon returning to campus in May, the students will work on their junior papers, write up their findings and present them at a symposium.

"Being in Panama ... I think gave us a huge advantage over people who didn't study abroad," Geller said, "in terms of being able to write cohesively and putting together good study questions."

One of the biggest impacts Princeton in Panama has had on him, Geller said, is finding "a really good group of friends. We have this kind of solidarity that no one could really take away."

"We're thrown into another country and forced to spend every day with each other, so it's kind of like friendship on steroids. We've definitely gotten to know each other much faster than we would have in a Princeton setting," Kearns said of the relationships she has already formed with her peers in Panama.

Princeton in Panama is a rewarding experience for students and professors alike. "To see students so excited about doing science and having learned so much more about the natural world around them than they could on campus - it's just really gratifying," Rubenstein said.

The EEB Semester in the Field runs programs in both Panama and Kenya, though the semester in Kenya was canceled this spring due to strife in the region. Rubenstein, who teaches a course on the natural history of mammals in Kenya, expects the program to take place next year.