An Amazonian adventure shifts SFSU student perspectives
An immersive trip to Ecuador gives students a unique firsthand look at climate justice issues
To say this summer’s San Francisco State University class “LS 430: Future of the Forests” was wild may be an understatement. Though Associate Professor of Liberal Studies Logan Hennessy usually teaches the course during the fall or spring semesters, occasionally over the summer he’ll offer a short-term study abroad version that includes a trip to Ecuador. According to his students, this year’s highlight was coming across a footlong dead lizard stuck in the mud while hiking in the Amazon rainforest … and discovering that the lizard was actually a living caiman (a small native crocodile).
Six SFSU students embarked on this once-in-a-lifetime Ecuador adventure from June 17 to July 8. The jam-packed trip included a stay at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station — located at the edge of Amazonian Ecuador in the most biodiverse forest in the world — as well as a stay at an organic farm in the cloud forest of the Intag River Valley, exploration of the Indigenous cities Otavalo and Cotacachi and sightseeing in Ecuador’s capital of Quito.
“It just changes the way you see the world around you, being in an environment so abundant and full of nature and creatures and community,” said SFSU third-year Isaac Mclaughlan. “People care so much about each other and the world around them.”
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