Sister Damien Marie Savino, FSE, Ph.D. of Houston, Texas, and Sister Mary Frances Traynor, FSE, Ph.D. of Assisi, Italy, recently visited Earth University in Costa Rica as invited guests of the University. With six others from the United States, they spent several days at the 8,154 acre Earth University campus, learning about the university’s innovative educational programs, meeting the faculty and students, and experiencing the environment and ecology of the humid tropics.
EARTH (Escuela de Agricultura de la Región Tropical Húmeda) University, located in Guacimo, Limón, Costa Rica, is a private, non-profit university dedicated to educating young people in the agricultural sciences and natural resource management so they can be leaders, especially in the area of sustainable development of the humid tropics. From its founding in 1990, the University has grown to 413 students from 23 countries in South and Central America, the Caribbean, and most recently Uganda, Africa. The students attend school 6 days a week (classes begin daily at 6 AM), 11 months a year for four years. In addition to classroom learning, there is a strong emphasis on experiential learning and fieldwork, which can be conducted at the organic and integrated farms on campus, in the ethnobotanical garden (where medicinal plants and herbs are grown), and in the 2500-acre tropical rainforest reserve. Student interns work with local farmers to promote new ways of environmentally sound agricultural production, study tropical biology, and develop their own entrepreneurial projects. Sister Mary Frances and Sister Damien Marie, both scientists, hope to establish avenues of collaboration for their university students and for the Franciscan community. Sister Mary Frances teaches at the University of Perugia, Italy, and Sister Damien Marie is an Assistant Professor of Biology and Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas, Houston.
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