Professor Stuart White is hosting two information sessions for his travel course offered by the Department of Geography and Geosciences, GEOG 2730 - Ecuador: Reading Grass Páramo: The High Andes Underfoot. 

The course will take place during spring break 2025, March 8 - March 15, and will take you on the adventure of a lifetime, hiking in three spectacular national parks in Ecuador: Cajas, Sangay and Chimborazo. What ties these parks together is páramo, a high-elevation Andean savanna. Páramo covers extensive areas of the tropical Andes in an altitudinal belt between the tree line at about 11,000’, and the snowline at 16,000’. Despite its remoteness and wilderness aspect, evidence suggests that the development of grass páramo was driven by human intervention, and in particular hunter-gatherer fire beginning in the late Pleistocene. The course will focus on páramo ecology, including its origins following deglaciation 15,000 years ago.

The course earns 3 credits and is open to students from all disciplines. Tuition is included in the Spring Semester course load.

The information sessions will offer interested students an opportunity to meet the instructor and to learn more about the content of the course and the travel experience in Ecuador.