Programs | WINTER Programs | THAILAND

Participants must arrive to the program fully vaccinated against COVID-19, having reviewed our health and safety page

Program Details

Location: Bangkok, Thailand

Dates: Winter 2025: January 15 – February 27, 2025

Applications: Accepted on a rolling admission basis

Accommodations:  Occasional camping, primarily rural lodge or hostel

Credits: 15 quarter credits or 10 semester credits

Language: English instruction

Courses: Environmental Wildlands Studies, Environmental Field Survey, Wildlands Environment and Culture

Prerequisites: One college level course in environmental studies, environmental science, ecology or similar. 18 years of age

Program Costs

Application Fee

Paid when you submit your application. Refundable until you are formally accepted into a program.

Program Fee

Your tuition for the program, paid directly to Wildlands Studies.

In-Country Logistics Fee

Covers most on-the-ground expenses such as transportation during the program, camping and lodging fees, park and nature reserve entrance fees, permits, study facilities and other related logistical costs. For some programs, this fee also covers a portion of your meals. This fee is paid directly to Wildlands Studies.

Estimated Airfare and Mandatory Travel Insurance

Airfare costs are covered by the student and vary depending on your starting location and airline ticket prices. Travel insurance is required for our programs. Details about airfare and travel insurance will be provided in the Logistics Packet.

Estimated Food and Personal Expenses

Our estimate for the out-of-pocket expenses you will incur during the program for items such as food, snacks, drinks, laundry, entry visa and personal items. This amount will vary from student to student depending on spending habits.

Thailand Winter 2025
$      150    Application Fee
$   7,000    Program Fee
$   4,700    In-Country Logistics Fee
$   2,250    Estimated Airfare
$    500    Estimated Food and Personal Expenses

$14,600    Total Estimated Cost
Winter 2025: Program fees due by November 1, 2024

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The Program

Team members will participate in an ecological survey of key Indo-Pacific coastal habitats in southern Thailand and Malaysia. Island field sites include the tropical island archipelagoes of Ko Surin and Ko Adang in Thailand and Pulau Perhentian Islands in Malaysia. In each of these locations, extensive well-developed fringing reefs surround numerous islands, providing an excellent natural classroom and research environment for understanding coral reef ecology. On several islands, effective conservation efforts have resulted in fish that are generally larger and more abundant; whereas, on other islands, long-term human impacts have changed the composition of the reef community to one that supports smaller fish and larger, more abundant invertebrates. Our sites are deep within the "coral triangle," which holds significantly more species of fish and invertebrates (including corals) than any other place in the world.

Throughout our field studies we will research and survey selected coral reef fish species. We will conduct transects to compare particular aspects of different reef ecosystems, and, while snorkeling, use GPS and underwater digital photography to document changes over time at designated sampling sites.

Mainland coastal sites are another important component of the program. These include the Trang estuary, a freshwater habitat near the Andaman Coast of southern Thailand. With its extensive seagrass beds, the area around the Trang estuary supports Thailand’s only population of dugongs, a gentle, grazing marine mammal sometimes called a sea cow. Here we will research ecosystem management by evaluating strategies to mitigate existing threats to the coastal ecology.

This program presents a singular opportunity to assess issues that affect coastal and marine environments in Thailand and Malaysia, to investigate the habitat firsthand, and to develop possible strategies to solve problems posed by resource extraction, coastal development and climate change. By the end of the program students will have gained an in-depth understanding of many coastal and marine animal species and about Indigenous seafaring culture groups.

 
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More Details

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Syllabus

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Manual

 

Stories From the Field

Kylund Prior

THAILAND 2020 ALUMNI AND GILMAN SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENT

Below is an excerpt of Kylund’s blog A Journey with Wildlands Studies about her experience as a Gilman Scholarship Recipient and as a student.

“Some days we spent hours in the water seeking out fish species we had yet to see, hoping to get a rare glimpse of a reef shark. Others were spent interacting with members of indigenous communities to learn about their culture and how it was threatened. The only consistency in our daily routine was that we had the opportunity to interact with the subjects we were learning about. It was an incredible experience and full of memories.”

 

Watch the Thailand Student Video

Program Photo Gallery

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Charles Chris Carpenter

LEAD INSTRUCTOr

PhD in Biological Ecology, UC Davis, 1991

Chris is a conservation scientist who has conducted field studies and led natural history expeditions in Asia for over twenty years. His main academic focus is the ecology and geodynamics of mountain environments. He is also interested in the marine world, environmental control of species richness and strategies for habitat conservation. He lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and teaches part of the year at Payap University. Chris has been teaching with Wildlands Studies since 1990 and has taught in China, India and Southeast Asia. He currently leads our Thailand and Nepal programs.

Chris’s other Programs: