The education experience Courses with national and international field components. Each junior began a two-year training period that included ten common classroom, field and research courses (20 credits) newly created for this program:
FIU-UMEB First Year Courses:
	Courses (course type)		Instructors	Term	Credits
1	BSC 3364 Research in Tropical Ecosystems/GLY 3630 Research in Tropical Environments (lecture)		L. Collins, D. Childers, D. Lee	Fall, 15 weeks	3
2	BSC 4363 Biodiversity in the Caribbean Basin (lecture & field)		J. Francisco-Ortega, W. Goldberg	Spring, 15 weeks	3
3	EVR 4934 Special Topics (Environmental Ethics))		B. Bennett	Spring, 15 weeks	1
4	BSC 39XX/GLY 39XX Natural History of Central America [field course in Panamá (3 weeks), lectures at FIU (3 weeks)] Click here to see some pictures!		7 Instructors	Summer A, 6 weeks	3
5	BSC 39XX/GLY 39XX Laboratory Natural History of Central America (laboratory rotations through mentors' labs)		All Mentors	Summer B, 6 weeks	1
					Total: 11
FIU-UMEB Second Year Courses:
	Courses (course type)		Instructors	Term	Credits
6	BSC 3915 Student Research Lab/GLY 4910 Undergraduate Research		Your Mentor	Fall, 15 weeks	1
7	BSC 3915 Student Research Lab/GLY 4910 Undergraduate Research		Your Mentor	Spring, 15 wks	1
8	BSC 4931 Research Seminars in Environmental Biology		T. Collins, C. Brown	Spring, 15 weeks	1
					Total: 3

Andros Island in Bahamas	During the first year of the program, the juniors took three introductory lecture courses on tropical environmental biology research, environmental ethics, and Caribbean biodiversity. These courses included field visits to the Florida Keys, Everglades, ancient islands of South-Central Florida, and the Forfar Field Station on Andros Island, Bahamas. Junior students also took a summer field course at the Bocas del Toro Research Station of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama (STRI) on the Caribbean coast of Panama. During the second year of the program, the seniors received two one-credit training courses that explored environmental biology careers in research, education, or management. Senior students also developed with their mentors an independent research project within one of the program's four research areas (marine biology, terrestrial ecosystems, biodiversity and conservation, or paleoenvironments and geologic history). Results of this project were presented at the annual FIU-UMEB Symposium at the end of the spring term. Students received encouragement, instruction, and financial support to publish their project results and present them at a national professional meeting.
Additional UMEB Program activities included the following: q Career fairs in environmental biology q Participation in groups, to read and discuss scientific articles q Student rotations among the laboratories of mentors q Student participation in seminars (each year, several distinguished speakers from outside the university will give lectures on Tropical/Caribbean environmental biology) q Student participation in the UMEB Steering Committee (see below). Most of these additional activities also involved other FIU faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students, and Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden staff. return to main menu		FIU-UMEB Students looked for fossils in Panama.