The University of Georgia Interdisciplinary Field Program

The UGA Interdisciplinary Field Program (IFP) is an eight-week course in introductory geology, anthropology, and ecology that travels throughout the western U.S. during summer semester. It uniquely integrates basic concepts from each discipline and applies them to North American landscapes by hands-on learning in an outdoor classroom. IFP is a challenging course co-sponsored by the UGA Geology Department and Honors Program. Students learn to balance extensive field work (including maintaining a field notebook as well as producing project reports and maps), lectures, reading assignments, and periodic exams, in addition to non-academic responsibilities associated with daily camp life and travel.

The goal of the program is to provide students a broad scale science-based understanding of the natural processes that formed and continue to shape our environment and how humans and other organisms are dependent upon, interact with, and alter the landscape. IFP fosters critical thinking skills by presenting multiple working hypotheses in discussions of past and current scientific questions and environmental issues.