Gorongosa 2024-FULL-FINAL - Flipbook - Page 58
made of modules—short but very immersive classes,
which include topics from organismal level classes—
mammalogy or herpetology—to subjects such as statistical analyses and modeling. In this way, students
receive a broad educational background that helps them
solve a variety of problems in conservation. Instructors
come from all over the world, volunteering their time to
teach these intensive modules for about two weeks. The
students basically “live, breathe, and eat that module”
Massad says: It’s all they do, working alongside the professor for eight hours a day, then doing homework at
night. “It’s super intensive, but it’s also a good learning
model because they’re so immersed in the courses, they
really engage with and assimilate the material. They
also connect what they learn in one module to another,
so they are building knowledge throughout the year.”
During the second year, each student takes on a
research project. This is when students collect data,
analyze them, and synthesize their results. They are
supported in this work by Massad, the new program fulltime director Kris Bal, and Piotr Naskercki, a polymath
entomologist who is helping develop a new research
facility on site, the E.O. Wilson Laboratory, which is the
hub of biodiversity research in Mozambique.
The program is free for the students, says Massad,
who currently divides her time as a consultant for the
program and continues to advise students, run experiments and teach, while also teaching at Oregon State
University.
The best thing about the program, says Atal Vilanculo, a current second-year student who is researching
sustainable agriculture in the buffer zone around the
park, is that he can learn through experience. “We don’t
[ just] need to read an article … we are seeing it in real
life,” he says. “And the worst thing is the baboons who
come and steal our food.”
The students’ work contributes to the cuttingedge science that is taking place in the park, filling
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PI OTR NA S KR EC KI
TAKING WING Master’s student Elsa Candido Caetano focused her second-year research project on butterflies. The
project uses the butterflies to measure restoration success on Mount Gorongosa. Above, the large striped swallowtail, a
species of butterfly found in Gorongosa.
