SUSTAINABLE ECOTOURISM IN COSTA RICA: BEGINNING TO BUILD STUDENT INTEREST IN GEOSCIENCE THROUGH PROGRAMMATIC CHANGE

A challenge for universities and academic departments is to maintain or grow enrollment in degree programs. This challenge can be difficult to align with faculty interest and expertise and prospective student interest or “market”. Aligning curriculum to employer needs is one strategy. Even so, many academic units or institutions dedicated to serving the needs of nontraditional students offer bachelor’s programs that are aligned with workforce needs but nontraditional students currently make up a smaller portion of students who enroll in geoscience related curriculum or majors.

At the author’s medium-sized private institution, one college is designed uniquely to support working adult, “nontraditional”, students. In Fall 2022, undergraduate student demographics for the college are reported as 57% Black or African American, 26% White, 7% Hispanic/Latino, 4% Asian, 1% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; with 54% over the age of 30, and about 80% female (gender reporting choices are being revised).

Offering a traditional geoscience program in the college is not feasible because the market in geoscience majors for working adult students is too small. However, a newly established interdisciplinary department of science offers us an opportunity to pilot and test new curriculum to gain student interest in a geoscience-related curriculum and meet university goals for enrollment. The beginning is a service-learning course in ecotourism that can include a study abroad in Costa Rica.

This presentation will describe a strategy to develop interest from nontraditional students in a geoscience-related curriculum into a program with student learning outcomes that include geoscience knowledge and skill in sustainability, in a format that meets student needs and their desired outcomes, and advances university enrollment goals. Initial data from the pilot course, faculty interest, and potential market will be presented.