“GEOSCIENCE IN THE HIMALAYA” STUDY ABROAD PROGRAM IN NEPAL

The “Nepal: Geoscience in the Himalaya” program is a seven-week summer field education program run by SIT Study Abroad (School of International Training). It combines traditional field geology skills with investigations in geohazards and earth-human system interactions. Students also complete a two-week independent research project. The program particularly emphasizes affordable, sustainable solutions to geohazards that are appropriate for a developing country such as Nepal. Nepal’s national university, Tribhuvan University, is a critical program collaborator. Most of the instructors are Nepali and Tribhuvan undergraduate students participate alongside their USA colleagues as full colleagues. Although working with students from a very different culture and educational system can be challenging, the students nearly unanimously report that it was a very valuable and appreciated component. The program is primarily geoscience fieldwork with a few cultural excursions. After a 4-day orientation in Kathmandu, the program takes a few days to travel to the Kali Gandaki Valley, refreshing students’ basic field skills along the way. Once in the Kali Gandaki, everyone treks on foot while completing a geologic transect map across the main Himalayan range. Additional traditional field skills are learned during a detailed stratigraphic or structural geology exercise in the Kagbeni area. On the way back down the valley, the emphasis changes to surface processes and students complete an airphoto analysis and small research project on human-earth system interactions. Once back on the road system, the program addresses other topics such as landslide and earthquake hazard analyses. The program stays in small local hostels; porters carry heavy bags, freeing students to do field unencumbered except for a daypack. Throughout this time, students maintain a research ideas journal from which they develop an independent research project, which they carry out during the last two weeks of the program. A key element in program safety in the face of potentially challenging political and environmental situations is a strong network of local collaborators and staff.