The lizard had had enough.

Discovered beneath a rotting log in a remote area of the Mojave National Preserve, the lizard squirmed gently in the palm of Biology Teaching Associate Tim Christensen, who held its tail gingerly between his thumb and forefinger. As Christensen described the lizard's physiology to the students clustered around him, one of the students gasped. Christensen looked down to find two inches of disembodied lizard thrashing between his fingers. The lizard had cut off its tail.

"It's an adaptive mechanism," Christensen said, dangling the still-active appendage for all to see. "When a predator grabs it, the lizard produces a chemical that allows it to drop its tail and escape. Then it grows another tail."

Self-amputating lizards are just one of the wonders of the desert that students in Clara C. Piper Professor of Environmental Studies Dave Firmage's Jan Plan encountered during 22 days in the arid regions of southeastern California.

This year 15 Colby students, most of them biology majors, participated in the Jan Plan that Firmage has offered every other year since 1979.

The goals of the program have not changed, according to Firmage, but the depth and richness of the experience has increased with every trip. "We want first of all to give them exposure to a different ecosystem," Firmage said. "Most of these students have never been west of the Mississippi, so for them this is all completely new. Second, we want to teach them field techniques. The class [back at Colby] that deals with these techniques is taught in the spring, and we usually can't get out until late in the term. This gives us an opportunity to spend more time showing them these techniques and their use. We want them to be familiar with what it's like working in a field situation."

"Students come out here saying they thought the desert was such a lifeless place," Firmage said. "By the time they leave they're all saying, 'I can't believe how much life there is here'." On their first day in the field students already were beginning to understand life in the desert.

Using a botanist's guide to identify various characteristics of individual plants--type of leaf, color, flower and so on--students spent most of the morning identifying species of shrubs and cacti in the preserve. That afternoon they fanned out in five three-member teams to conduct "transects," tests to determine the density of vegetation in a given area. Within the section that they tested, students found almost 20 different kinds of plants. Their names are as exotic as their setting. Spanish bayonet. Darning needle cactus. Cat's claw. Burro bush. Skunk shrub. Joshua tree.

"I never realized there was so much diversity," said Adam Wolk '97 from Davis, Calif. "I had always envisioned the desert as this flat, barren wasteland."

There were, however, some places that were virtually devoid of life, especially Death Valley National Park, in which the students spent a day early in their trip. Blisteringly hot in summer--a temperature of 134 degrees Fahrenheit, for many years the world record, was recorded at Furnace Creek in 1913--Death Valley during the winter months is slightly more hospitable but no less awesome. At Badwater, so named because of the high salt content in the pools that form here, the altimeter measured 282 feet below sea level, the lowest land point in North America. Relentless winds gusting upwards of 70 miles per hour did not deter students from walking onto the salt flats to better explore this unique geological phenomenon. Later in the day students scrambled through the narrow natural canyons of the Black Mountain foothills in an area known as Artist's Palette because of the shades of violet, green and orange rock created by decomposing volcanic ash. One student described Death Valley as a "moonscape," and the characterization was apt. Other than a few creosote bushes that struggled to survive on the fringes of the canyon, the only life visible all day was a coyote that wandered within a few feet of the road and paused for students to get a better look. Indeed, studying biology here seemed a contradiction in terms. However, students found the absence of biodiversity as fascinating as the plethora of vegetation they had found the day before in the Mojave. In Death Valley--where wind, heat and shifting rock set the agenda for whatever life exists-- students' perspectives about the relationship between humans and their environment began to change.

Jared Fine '98, of Westbury, N.Y., said the desert forced him to confront an environment harsh enough to resist human encroachment. "I'm learning there are places besides New York City," he said. "There are so many other environments, and now I just want to see them all."

The trip to Death Valley was eye-opening and provocative for all of the students, but for some, like David O'Connor of Waterford, Ireland, the experience provided a simple but profound poignancy. When asked to characterize his experience in one sentence, O'Connor replied: "I saw a coyote."


Weary, hungry and red-eyed, their boots crusted with salt from the floor of Death Valley, the Colby students trudged into a restaurant in Baker, Calif., (Home of the World's Tallest Thermometer) for their evening meal. Within minutes one-liners--most at the expense of the restaurant's name, Bun Boy--were rolling like tumbleweeds.

Burgers and shakes all around. Some good-natured sparring with the waiters. "Don't get used to this," Firmage told the group through the chatter and bites of Bun Boy specials. "This is the last treat for a while."

As they piled into their vans for the return trip, still joking and laughing, it was clear that after only two days together these 15 Colby students already were a community. Out here in the Big Empty, getting along was one of the most important lessons of the trip.

Thrown together for more than three weeks, the students lived with an intensity few had ever experienced--living, cooking, eating, traveling together and generally sharing each other's space in a "home" that was a radical departure from their traditional college setting. They stayed at a compound known as The Desert Studies Center, operated by California State University-Fullerton. Literally an oasis, the former health spa was accessible only by a rocky, at times barely passable, road in the desert interior. There was one open-air, communal shower room, spartan lodging and little in the way of entertainment. After their evening classroom session with Christensen and Firmage, students usually broke into small groups to play cards, talk or write letters. Yet they responded well to the simplicity of the lifestyle and the lack of modern conveniences.

Marc Hebert, a sophomore from Madawaska, Maine, said the Jan Plan for him was much more than an academic experience; it was a time for personal growth. "This trip had a lot of firsts for me. It was the first time I had ever flown, the first time I'd traveled out of the East, the first time I had been to the desert and the first time I've lived with another group of people in this kind of situation," he said. "It has really opened up a lot of new things for me."

Firmage acknowledges that part of the educational value of the desert Jan Plan is the "group dynamics" that are worked out as a result. Student crews were given responsibilities for planning and preparing meals each day. They also were responsible for keeping track of field equipment and for specific recording and measuring of data.

Jared Fine, the New York native, said the educational aspect of the trip didn't end with the discussions about plants and animals. "This is not just about biology," he said. "The other night we stayed up late having a philosophy discussion. There's much more to learn here than I ever would have imagined."

Experiential learning was new for most of the students, and they liked it. David Regan, a sophomore from Lisbon Falls, Maine, said the Mojave Jan Plan "brought the textbooks to life."

"I've really liked Colby, but I have felt like there was something missing in my education, and now I know what it was," Regan said. "Being here and seeing the desert firsthand is so much more revealing than reading about it in a book."

Firmage believes that Jan Plan is "the most important thing we do" for science majors and non-science majors alike. "We've had cases in which Jan Plans have determined students' career plans," he said. "Many students have told me after going to graduate school that this experience helped them prepare because they had been in the field and used these techniques."

For non-science majors, he says, exposure to field science provides context for environmental issues that students will be concerned about after college. In the Mojave, for example, Firmage and Christensen described how grazing rights had been an issue in the debate over whether the federal government should set aside parts of the desert as national preserves. "When we talk about these issues and we're actually standing in the place and examining the ecosystem that is being affected, students have a much greater understanding of the complexities involved," Firmage said.

Caroline Ketcham, a junior from Prather, Calif., says she has driven through the Mojave several times but always viewed it as a "dull, lifeless place." "When I heard they were having a Jan Plan out here I figured there must be something more interesting," she said. Now, she says, she understands environmentalists' concerns about the fragility of the desert ecosystem and the beauty that should be preserved.

"The desert gets in your blood," Firmage said. "I know I miss it if I'm away for too long."

Christensen said, "Occasional trips to the desert are rejuvenating" partly because its contrasts with Maine are so dramatic. "It's so vast; the horizon is uninterrupted," he said. "Also, it's nice to get away from Maine winters."

Firmage is especially pleased that Colby can offer the desert Jan Plan to students regardless of means. Past foundation support has created a scholarship pool that annually provides assistance for students who cannot afford the trip. "We didn't want this to become an exclusive experience," he said. "It's such an important part of our program that it wouldn't be right to limit it to students who could afford the full cost."

Firmage said that students who sign up for the Mojave Jan Plan don't expect a vacation. "This is definitely not Club Med," he said. The knowledge and self-knowledge that students acquire during the three weeks in the desert is evident in journal entries whose tones range from raw excitement to wide-eyed awe. The journals reflect all of the grandeur and harshness of the desert environment, and they reveal the spirits of curious learners and fun-loving young adults. Noah Owen-Ashley, a first-year from Essex Junction, Vt., described the biological and cultural lessons of his desert experience in an epigram that may best represent the collective mood of his program mates. "The desert," he said, "is burro bush and Bun Boy."

It's a Jungle Out There
While Dave Firmage's students were tromping through the desert in California, Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Bill Romey was leading another group into the rain forest of Ecuador.

And just as the Mohave Desert experience enriched students' understandings of the issues surrounding its preservation, the Ecuador trip clarified for Romey's students the complications of sustaining biodiversity while providing for human needs.

The theme of the Ecuador Jan Plan was human and environmental concerns related to rain forest destruction. Organized by Colby graduate Abigail Rome '78, who has worked since 1990 to preserve Ecuardor's ecosystems, the trip put students in touch with Ecuadorean officials and scientists and with "squatters" who live and hunt in national parks.

"In this environment students get to see that there are very poor people who really have no choice but to go in and hunt game in the national parks," Romey said. "When you read about that you might say, `Kick 'em out, lock 'em up, put 'em in jail,' but being there you see that you must balance saving the animals with people's livelihoods."

Like Firmage, Romey believes that the Jan Plan is crucial to students' educations in science. "I would imagine it's important in every field, but it's especially important in biology because you are dealing with physical objects you have to hold and touch and examine," he said. "You can always sit in the library and read about biodiversity, but you don't understand its significance until you actually see it."

The physical demands placed upon students in Ecuador also contribute to the educational experience, Romey says. "A lot of people have never been immersed in a culture--particularly one where they couldn't speak English freely--that doesn't offer some basic things they're used to. The beds we sleep on are basically a thin bit of foam on a piece of board. Most of the time if there is a shower available at all it's a cold shower. The food is quite plain, usually a bowl of potato soup and some rice."

Students spent long hours hiking at high elevations to villages accessible only by a crude cow path. "It's no vacation," Romey said.

Romey expects some of the students will look back years from now and see their experience in Ecuador as a major influence in their lives. A similar trip led to Romey's decision to pursue the study of animal behavior. "It was on the island of Tonga and a researcher who was studying humpbacked whales invited me to go out with him. I was swimming ten feet from these whales and thinking, `I want to do this.' It was sort of a key moment that made me realize I wanted to make a career of this. There's just no substitute for that kind of experience."

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