New England College’s Tropical Marine Biology class took an educational trip with Biology Professor Eric Simon in January to study in Belize, a country on the north-eastern coast of Central America.
“The students learned about Belize and learned about all of the ecosystems that we were going to see and a lot of the organisms that we were going to see,” Professor Simon said.
The course met once a week in the fall semester to learn about the marine biology of Belize. The students put together a final lab project based on their findings while exploring the country.
“We went out into the ocean, and we did our methods that we preformed, and we took data based on what the group determined,” Biology Major Vincent Leone said in an interview with The NewEnglander. “We came back to the truck station where we were all kind of living and we worked on our posters.”
They completed the task with help from Professor Geoff Cook, a Marine Biologist in the Biology department. During each of the nine days in Belize, the students explored different activities and embarked on new adventures.
“We went into each classroom for each grade, I think it was first through eighth grade; that was a really rewarding experience,” Leone said.
There are other immersion trips offered at NEC, and Leone said he is glad he was able to take part in the memorable experience.
“It would give students a once in a lifetime opportunity, and we are studying things that we’ll probably never see around here,” Leone said. “It gives us a lot of opportunity to present our research, which, maybe Bio majors aren’t used to doing that.”
After full completion and the students return to school, Professor Simon said that their work will be presented in the halls of the Science building here at NEC after the students’ posters are printed.
NEC has offered this class with around 10 spots open, every year for the past 10 years, along with a few other classes with fully funded trips according to the content of the course. Some of the upcoming trips include the annual Criminal Justice travel to Washington, D.C. and Virginia. The Sustainable Entrepreneur and Innovation class will go to Kenya, and the Travel Writing class is to study abroad in the Galapagos.
If any students are interested in what these classes have to offer, there is a website section of NEC’s website, nec.edu, titled “Study Away Trips” with information on trips and contacts.
