Field courses

Field courses are one of the Tropical Biology Association's flagship activities that have launched careers worldwide. Our 2023 field course is based at the Makerere University Biological Field Centre in the Kibale Forest, Uganda.  The field course will last four weeks, and to help prepare students for the course we have included this online element. Here students can get to know their fellow students and tutors, learn about some of the fauna and flora they will see during the course. The TBA courses aim to: increase understanding of the conservation and ecological issues of tropical ecosystems - providing students with skills essential to conducting field research in the tropics; enable participants to learn from each other and form a dynamic network; inspire and support students in developing their career in ecology and conservation. 

Field courses are one of the Tropical Biology Association's flagship activities that have launched careers worldwide. The 2022 field course was based at the Mpala Research Centre in the savanna and grassland ecosystems of Laikipia region, Kenya. The course lasted almost four weeks, and to help prepare students for the course we  included this online element. Here students could get to know their fellow students and tutors, learn about savannas and get to know some of the fauna and flora they would see during the course. Our online and field element of the course aims to: increase understanding of the conservation and ecological issues of tropical ecosystems - focusing on savannas; provide students with skills essential to conducting field research in the tropics; enable participants to learn from each other and form a dynamic network; inspire and support students in developing their career in ecology and conservation.      

This is the online component to our Project Design field course, which focussed on practical skills and know-how for designing field-based projects. The course was based at the Mpala Research Centre in the savanna and grassland ecosystems of Laikipia region, Kenya. The course lasted 10 days and to help prepare students for the course we included this online element.  Here participants could get to know their fellow students and tutors and learn about some of the fauna and flora they would see whilst on the course. They also learnt the foundations of designing projects, from asking the research question to thinking about the sampling design. This would be built on further during the field element of the course. Our online and field element of the course aims to: give students first hand experience of conservation and ecological issues of tropical ecosystems; provide them with skills essential to conducting field research; enable them to learn from each other and form a dynamic network; inspire and support them in developing their career in ecology and conservation.