Study Abroad Botswana 2016
Now running for the 5th
year, the Botswana program 2016 was yet another success. We have now been
measuring vegetation regrowth for 12 plots over multiple years. Slowly we are
actually seeing some differences between plots and it’s now time to start
analyzing these data sets. This year we
have also introduced another 12 transects in order to determine the carrying
capacity for browsers and grazer across the different habitats found at Thakadu
Game Farm in Ghanzi. Apart from field work the group had some amazing
experiences. Part of this year’s highlights was the visit to the San Cultural
Center in D’kar, the visit to MODISA and an information session held by Peace
Corp volunteer Peggy Flynn.
As part of the coursework, we
joined UT students with members of the Department of Wildlife and National
Parks for a training session on the use of GPS in the field and vegetation
sampling.
We ended the course with an
extensive Safari through the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and the Khwai region
where students had some breathtaking wildlife experiences. Unforgettable for
most of us remains the moment when a male lion visited our camp at night.
Don’t forget to check out our
video clips and our blog (http://studyabroadbotswana.blogspot.com/) for more impressions. All videos have been produced by Emree Weaver, who is a masters student in the Journalism Department at UT.