FSML Planning Activities: Research, Education and Facilities Planning for the Prescott College Field Station

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Prescott College has been conducting field courses for undergraduates in the Gulf of California, and particularly in the area around Bahia Kino, Sonora, Mexico, and the Midriff Island region of the Gulf of California, for nearly thirty years. Although it is a small liberal arts school, its mission emphasizes field studies and experiential approaches to science and environmental studies. The college recently purchased a small field station on the coast of the Gulf of California near the town of Bahia Kino, Sonara, Mexico and has been offering field courses and facilitating research at the station since the fall of 1992. With the growth of the college, the creation of a Master of Arts program and increases in enrollment and use of the field station, the college has expanded its commitment to the Prescott College Kino Bay Center for Cultural and ecological Studies by appointing a director,hiring a manage, increasing operating budgets and committing to a broader mission for the station,particularly in the area of support for scientific research, independent studies and graduate students. Although the station is a small offers unparalleled access to a unique and fragile bioregion, which is coming under increasing human pressures. It is only field station on a 400-mile stretch of Sonoran Desert coast from Puerto Penasco in the north to Guaymas in the south. This project will develop an intelligent, coherent, long-range plan that will improve the undergraduate curriculum, create opportunities for graduate research at the station, define research priorities and identify the facilities and equipment needs to properly support research in marine and desert ecology, island biogeography,cultural anthropology and human impact on fisheries. The intent is to create a field station that supports and blends qualify field research with undergraduate field courses and graduate studies.