1. General environmental context
a. Students will understand the interactions and tradeoffs between power generation, fuel, water, food and land under different kinds of agriculture.
b. Students will be able to describe these tradeoffs from multiple points of view and using different analytical approaches toward defining problems and potential solutions.
c. Students will be introduced to examples of how to frame a problem statement with adaptive management process that includes technical and economic issues, scientific information and local social values.
2. Specific local context
a. Students will study and be environmentally literate on Nicaragua, including major industries, demographics, sources of power and water, major environmental challenges, health problems, and other topics.
b. Students will be able to describe the geographical and geological features of the region that we will visit.
c. Students will be able to predict what plants and animals can be found in different regions of Nicaragua.
d. Students will be able to describe current government practices and initiatives in the area of energy development.
e. Students will be able to name at least five NGOs that are operating in this region and describe each of their mission statements, assets and operating principles.
3. Technical aspects
a. Students will be able to describe, in detail, and identify all the parts of four alternative energy devices (photovoltaic, wind, micro-hydro and active solar furnace).
b. Students will be able to connect and assemble any of these devices from plans.
c. Students who take the optional technical seminar will be able to design and plan a solar or micro-hydro to meet particular needs.
4. Study tour
a. Students will experience the difference between study travel and vacation tourism.
b. Students will appreciate how to learning from direct experiences can greatly enhance what they learn from more traditional academic sources.
c. Students will see, first hand, the complexity and messiness of actual working facilities and learn how to identify key features that are common to many environmental problems.
d. Students will compare and discuss the energy, food and water requirements of different lifestyles including their American version to that of their hosts in Nicaragua.
e. Students will collectively be able to discuss the details of sustainable energy projects with themselves, the instructors, non-technically trained people and technical or policy specialists.
5. Proposal writing
a. Students will understand the proposal writing and submission process.
b. Students will know how to find out which agencies or NGOs might fund a particular project.
c. Students will organize to work together to create a draft proposal that can be presented to the instructors (and a small audience) and defend their ideas and details.
d. Students will cooperate to write one final proposal that may be suitable for submission.