Field Ecology and Conservation at Prescott College is about connecting with the natural world and conserving it towards the long-term sustainable future of the planet. Our students truly engage with nature and experience it up close, in person. Our students spend over half their time outdoors, identifying and inventorying native plants, monitoring seabird nesting behavior on offshore islands, and restoring riparian ecosystems to health and vitality. In the classroom, we learn evolutionary theory, the life histories of organisms, and field methods for ecological research. We take the knowledge and skills we learn in the greater Southwest and apply it worldwide on field studies. We travel to the rainforest of Costa Rica, the coast of the Gulf of California, and to the alpine tundra of the Sierra Nevada.
What can you do with this degree?
Our students become the conservationists of the twenty first century. Amidst a modern world of ecological upheaval, they do this by focusing on place-based conservation projects, restoring the planet one community at a time. Graduates find livelihoods as research technicians, ecological consultants, ecotourism guides, naturalist educators, and park rangers. They work for organizations such as The National Park Service, The Nature Conservancy, Rio Grande Returns, and The Center for Biodiversity. They monitor the return of rapids along the Colorado River, changes in gallery forest stands in the Hassayampa Preserve, and restore wetlands at the headwaters of the Rio Grande stands. Many of our students also go on to attain graduate degrees in related fields, such as Botany and Biology. By providing unparalleled opportunities to engage with and explore the natural world, Prescott College’s Field Ecology and Conservation major is designed to give students the knowledge, skills, and experience to be the best field ecologists and conservationists of our times.
Here are just a few examples:
Campaign Organizer/Green Policy Advocate
Community Development
Conservation Biologist
Project Ecologist
High School Teacher
Environmental Analyst
Marine Conservation Program Coordinator
Marine Science Educator
What will this program look like?
The program advances and integrates understanding across many disciplines, including the biological, physical, and social sciences, and the humanities. Students use these insights to illuminate the interrelationships between human and non-human realms, meanwhile learning specific skills in community development, application to real-world situations, critical thinking, field and laboratory methods, and oral and written communication.
Students pursuing a BA in Field Ecology & Conservation will be able to address the values, processes, inquiry- and solution-generating abilities, and applications required to develop a philosophical understanding of, and ethical stance regarding, human-nature interactions and relationships.
Available Concentrations within Field Ecology and Conservation
Marine Studies Natural History Interpretation Sustainable Food Systems Environmental Education
Other Available Concentrations
Adventure Education Climate Justice Education for Social Justice Environmental Studies Equity Studies in Outdoor Leadership Outdoor Leadership
Values: Learners can explain the historical and cultural foundations of how humans value and conserve nature and natural resources.
Processes: Learners can describe ecological and evolutionary processes across temporal and spatial scales.
Application: Learners can articulate effective solutions to ecological challenges based on analysis of complex natural and human systems.
Research and Inquiry: Evaluate validity of current field research and scientific data around environmental topics and issues.
The Field Ecology and Conservation BA is accredited by Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association. The Higher Learning Commission has approved Prescott College to offer all of its degree titles via distance education.
Over the past year, Mariana Altrichter continued her scholarly work and research in Argentina. Dr. Altrichter and colleagues studied the effectiveness of conservation inside Indigenous lands versus private or state-owned land. They conclude that land-tenure security is key for Indigenous territories to reduce forest loss, adding evidence to the importance of securing land-tenure rights of Indigenous communities for conservation purposes. At a regional scale, a large proportion of the remaining forests are Indigenous, and conservation initiatives should be co-developed with locals, respecting their rights, needs, and cosmovisions.
This research was published in the Journal of Global Environmental Change in July 2023. “Indigenous Lands with secure land tenure can reduce forest loss in deforestation hotspots.” Read more here.
Olivia Milner ’23
For Olivia’s senior project – “Fostering Ecological Identity: Tiny Ecosystems, Enormous Discoveries,” she worked on growing the educational Terrarium business that she and her partner and fellow Prescott graduate, Alyssa Culpepper, started in November 2022, inspired by their studies here at Prescott! She created the Instagram account @woodlandrootstrade to journal and share educational content with the public–documenting their discoveries from their adventures as students, naturalists, and entrepreneurs.
Careers & Opportunities
Career Pathways
The jobs listed below show how versatile our Field Ecology and Conservation BA degree is, and how valuable our graduates are:
Audubon Alaska’s Director of Conservation Science
Campaign Organizer/Green Policy Advocate
Community Development
Environmental Director
Conservation Biologist
Conservation Director of the Sky Island Alliance
Director of Prescott Creeks
Director of Western Watersheds
Project Ecologist, Author, and Lead Scientist at Earthwatch Institute
Career Planning
Our student success team works with you to map out a plan that works, for your goals and your life. There are many ways to get where you’re going, and we’ve seen it all!
Are you interested in being part of our community?
One thing we all have in common is our passion – passion for helping others, passion for the environment, passion for social justice and a passion for a different kind of learning experience.
