WAUKESHA – Like so many college students, Katherine Kasnia went south over semester break this year. The 20-year-old University of Wisconsin-Waukesha student from Brookfield didn’t bask in the sun or sleep until noon, however. She was enrolled in a special Study Abroad program that ran from December 31 to January 13 in Belize. Eleven enrolled students traveled to the Central American country, where David Kopitzke from the UW-Richland biology department conducted a class in field ecology. She learned to deal with the environment as much as she learned about it.
The first week they stayed in the rainforest of Belize. Wakened mornings by birds and howler monkeys, they would get up, check their shoes for scorpions, and then go bird watching. During the day, they regularly had to pull ticks off their bodies as well. The second week they spent on St. George’s Caye, northeast of the mainland. Outside of their 8-hour class days, which included lessons and experiments, they also had time to explore.
The students kept journals, recording what they saw, did, and felt. “I walked away with a different outlook on us and them,” Kasnia compared her life with that in the underdeveloped country. “It opens your eyes to the world,” she added. She perceived a huge divide between consumption in the developed world and mere meeting of necessities in Belize. Feeding the wants of developed nations affects the economy of the world, she says. At the rate we now are cutting down the rainforest to get products to sell, it will be gone by 2050, she warns.
For her part, Kasnia plans to start carpooling and is actively working to decrease pollutants. She also is speaking at middle and elementary schools in the Brookfield area, preaching a world-conscious view to the next generation and hoping to be paid with independent-study credit, which will advance her further toward her career goal.
Drawn to the program because she expects to go into environmental law, Kasnia dearly valued the experience. Not only does she recommend that students take advantage of such opportunities, but that they prepare for it by reading up on the destination. “It isn’t a vacation,” she reminds. Mostly she emphasizes, however, “Talk to the people who live there!”
UW-Waukesha has the largest enrollment among the 13 freshman-sophomore University of Wisconsin Colleges campuses. For information about programs, admission or financial aid, contact the Student Services office, (262) 521-5200, or visit the Web at waukesha.uwc.edu.
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