Marine mammal field courses to Antarctica & Scotland Announcing 2 field courses by the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University in Virginia (USA), in conjunction with the Center for Global Education at George Mason University. Marine Mammal and Penguin Biology <http://globaled.gmu.edu/programs/facultyled/winterstudy/antarctica.html> in Antarctica will be held December 2012 - January 2013: Summer in Antarctica. Participants will spend New Year's Eve in Ushuaia, Argentina, preparing for a sixteen day voyage to Antarctica. After cross the Drake Passage, students will spend their days landing in different Antarctic environments in the South Shetland Islands, along the western Antarctic Peninsula, and Weddell Sea and in zodiac boats cavorting with whales! Marine Mammals and Turtle Conservation <http://globaled.gmu.edu/programs/facultyled/summerstudy/scotland.html> will be held in Scotland from July 7 to July 21. While working alongside students from Queen Mary College, University of London, the University of Glasgow, the University of Leicester and University of Stirling, students in this truly international program will gain broad knowledge and understanding of marine mammals from an ecological and behavioral sense. Lectures are given at the University Marine Biological Station Millport on the Isle of Cumbrae, Scotland, during which research vessel trips are made to study common and grey seal behavior at local haul-out sites and to conduct transect surveys for porpoises, Minke whale, seabirds and basking shark in the outer Clyde area. The course then spends four days travelling to and based in Tobermory, on the Isle of Mull. Here two days are spent at sea looking for Minke whale and other cetaceans in the waters off Mull, on research and commercial whale watching boats. Students attending George Mason University and other universities and colleges are eligible for these programs. The application deadline is MARCH 2 for each of these programs. Students apply through the Center for Global Education website: globaled.gmu.edu <http://globaled.gmu.edu/index.html> CONTACT marnold7@gmu.edu for further details. Instructor: Associate Professor Dr Chris Parsons. Author of the new undergraduate textbook "An introduction to marine mammal biology & conservation"