Field trips constitute an integral part of the EEWL REU and provide context for discussions about ecological interactions and evolutionary phenomena in working landscapes. 

Field trips will build and expand the intellectual foundation in interdisciplinary science needed to understand the interconnections between natural systems and human communities. 

An interactive discussion held prior to each field trip will address the scientific ideas that underlie the trip and encourage students to confront the societal issues associated with each system. These include considerations such as research on natural lands, the use of traditional ecological knowledge, or the intellectual ownership of agricultural productivity. Each trip will be followed by a debriefing to discuss what scholars learned in the context of their own work.

Venues and educational objectives

Two EEWL field trips will be open to scholars across the breadth of UC Davis life science summer research programs. 

• We will offer a day-long field trip to the Bodega Marine Laboratory and Reserve to all summer research scholars. Over the years, we have seen that this field trip fosters community among scholars from all programs, provides many students with their first encounter with marine habitats and organisms and introduces them to ecological or environmental challenges, and the diverse cultures – past, present, and future – that must be represented in addressing these challenges. The Bodega field trip will highlight the legacy of archaeological sites at the Bodega Marine Reserve, in collaboration with the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, and in the context of land grant universities, such as UC Davis, that profited from expropriation of indigenous land.
• A second field trip will take all scholars to a firm in the agricultural or private sector. This provides scholars with exposure to science outside the academic realm and insight into potential careers, and fosters integration of disciplinary material with commercial considerations, for example how industry scientists work to adapt crops and cropping systems to changing climates. 

Thus, field trips will help scholars build the intellectual foundation in interdisciplinary science needed to understand the ecological and evolutionary effects of rapid environmental change in diverse ecosystems and landscapes, and how natural systems, human communities, and working landscapes are interconnected.