Location:

Quito, Ecuador

Program Type:

Study Abroad

Degree Level:

Undergraduate

Term:

Summer

Program Overview

Program Description:

Arrive Date: 7/1/2013 End Date: 7/30/2013

This course examines the historical development and current situation of Ecuador's indigenous peoples, with special emphasis on issues of environmental sustainability. Using lectures, seminar discussions and fieldwork, the course underscores the impact that economic and political factors have on the process of indigenous cultural adaptation. Students are encouraged and required to develop individual research/creative projects, and they will have the opportunity to interact with indigenous Amazonian youth with whom they will share knowledge and the community life-style of the tropical rainforest.

COURSES
Native American Studies 120: Ethonopolitics of South American Indians (4 units)
Social, political, cultural movements of indigenous South Americans in response to establishment, expansion of European colonialism, post-colonial nation-states. Ethnopolitical processes developed through interactions between Indians, Euroamericans. Socioethnographic analysis of main indigenous areas and the development of national societies. GE: SocSci, Div, Wrt. Prerequesites: NAS 1, or 10, or 55 or consent of instructor.
AND
Native American Studies 198 (4 units)
Directed Group Studies - P/NP only

Graduate Course Options available.

The Amazon tropical rainforest of Ecuador (selva amazónica in Spanish) is a humid evergreen forest that covers the largest portion of Ecuador’s four natural regions: the Andes, the Coast, the Galápagos Islands and the Amazon. For millennia dozens of indigenous peoples have settled these regions of the eastern slopes of the Ecuadorian Andes and their rivers developing extraordinary cultural adaptations to its diverse environments and creating a civilization that has been praised as a successful example of adaptive co-evolution of humans and all other species.

Excursions and Day Trips

Activities in Quito( Arrival and Departure location)

-Visit the old town, church and old plazas, museums, etc.
-Optional visit to the teleferico, the Midle of the World Monument, the Intinnan museum(at own expenses)

Activities in Otavalo(overnight stay)
-Visit the animal market
-Visit the Cuicocha Lagoon
-Visit old ruins, etc

Activities in Mindo(overnight stay)
-Canopy
-Butterfly House
-Trekking to the Mindo Nambillo falls
-Visit orchird farm
-Guided nocturnal walks, etc.

Activities in Baños (overnight stay)
-Baños and Tungurahua Volcano
-Trekking to the Pailón del Diablo waterfall
-City by Night tour in Baños
Visit to the hot springs pools

Overnight stay in Tena

Activities in Yachana
-Guided tours of the Amazon lowlands to the Andes
-Tours of the Ecuadoran Amazon areas guided by local guides
-Expedition to the Sumaco Lagoon with naturalist and local guides
-Rafting of the Tena River
-Visit the Cloud Forest
-More activities will be arranged onsite

Upper-division units (open to freshmen through graduates). Taught in English. UC Davis courses taught by University of California, Davis faculty.

Please contact UC Davis Summer Abroad for the most up-to-date information concerning program costs. Programs start around $4,000.

All students enrolled in a Summer Abroad program (Davis and Non-Davis) will have the opportunity to apply for a Travel Award ($500 - $1,500.) Travel award deadline: March 5, 2013. Enrollment deadline is April 5, 2013.

Setting Description:

The Amazon tropical rainforest of Ecuador (selva amazónica in Spanish) is a humid evergreen forest that covers the largest portion of Ecuador’s four natural regions: the Andes, the Coast, the Galápagos Islands and the Amazon.

After a few days in the Andean areas of Quito, Otavalo and Mindo, students will travel by land to the Napo River in the Amazon region and establish base in the eco-ethno lodge of Yachana, a magnificent campus of stilted wooden buildings, groomed tropical gardens and surrounding primary forest.