UTC professor opens world to students through environmental study trips to the Bahamas

Photo Gallery

Bahamas Field Course opens world to UTC students

Over the past 18 years, biologist Dawn Ford has been leading undergraduate research trips from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to San Salvador, Bahamas. A small-town girl raised in rural Horse Branch, Kentucky, Ford never imagined that her lifelong passion for the environment would one day open up the world for others.

Her father was a coal miner and her family owned a tobacco farm. As a girl, when Ford wasn't in school or tending to outdoor chores, she was furiously scribbling letters to her congressman about ammonia contamination from a nearby stone quarry and how it might affect local wildlife.

Ford is a lifelong environmentalist.

After high school, she studied biology at Western Kentucky University. Then, she pursued a master's degree in botany at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Prior to graduate school, Ford says, "I'd never been anywhere. I almost quit during my first semester because I was so homesick."

She'd never been on airplane - let alone out of the country - until 1993, when her graduate professor Hardy Eshbaugh invited her to join a research trip to Andros, a small undeveloped island in the Bahamas. The plane seated only six. Ford remembers sitting directly behind the pilot.

"I remember looking out and seeing the crystal-clear turquoise waters and I felt at ease," she says.

The following year, Ford returned to Andros Island to conduct research for her master's thesis, for which she studied coastal seaweed communities. Every day, Ford and her research partner would pack their lunch, boat to a different island and spend the afternoon snorkeling for samples. Once, they spotted a school of wild dolphins. Ford and her partner slipped out of the boat and joined the marine mammals for a swim.

Her time on the island was a life-changing experience, albeit, at times, uncomfortable.

"What put me outside my comfort zone the most was living in close quarters with other people for two weeks 24/7. We stayed in cabins that housed six to eight people and we shared a bathroom," says Ford.

In 1997, after receiving her doctorate degree in environmental health, Ford landed a teaching position at UTC. In 1998, she created a Bahamas Field Course for UTC students.

Every year since then, Ford has returned to the Bahamas, leading a group of 12 or so undergraduate students to San Salvador, a small island with a population of 1,000 located east of Andros. In 2013, UTC geologist Ann Holmes became a co-instructor to the class. The group bunks in Gerace Research Centre, a former Navy base converted into a field station. There is no air conditioning, no TV and no cellphone service.

"When I tell [the students] that, their eyes go wide. It's not for everyone," Ford says.

The first half of the semester is spent in Ford's classroom preparing the students for island life. They learn about the local population, the ecosystems and how to collect data. Then, in March, they fly to San Salvador where they spend one week conducting biological and geological research.

Each year, the projects change. This year, the focus was on how pond life was impacted by Hurricane Joaquin, a Category 4 storm that struck the Bahamas in 2015.

However, the purpose of the field course is more than just scientific. It is also meant to expand students' worldviews, as it did for Ford 23 years ago. Many of her students have never traveled abroad, she says.

"For a lot of people, it is the first time they'll snorkel, see a stingray or a barracuda. It scares them at first," says Ford.

In the past, the course was restricted to biology and geology majors. This year, it was opened up to students within UTC's Honors College, a selective program for high-achieving students. For the first time, the trip to San Salvador included accounting, psychology, history and English students, as well as two biology majors.

"I'll do accounting for the rest of my life. I won't have this experience again," says 20-year-old accounting student Ashton Mitchell, who had traveled abroad once before to visit Bahamian capital Nassau with her family. In contrast to that resort town, San Salvador boasts only a few remote shops. "So if you forgot your shampoo, you had to wait like three days before making the trip to town," she says.

For Mitchell's project, she and three other students studied Oyster Pond for changes in biodiversity following the hurricane. Their research determined a decline in algae species but an increase in the scaly pearl oyster population.

Next year, Mitchell plans to return to San Salvador to complete her senior thesis, a requirement for students in the Honors College, when she will continue to monitor Oyster Pond for post-hurricane changes to its biota and that oyster population.

"The [scaly pearl oyster] is really interesting. They can change sex multiple times during reproductive stages. More than biology, my interest is in gathering data," says Mitchell, whose dream job is to study analytics for the FBI.

Ford will accompany Mitchell back to the island. In fact, Ford returns to the island as often as she can. She says traveling to San Salvador is like traveling back in time. The island is wild and rural. Perhaps it boasts the same small-town simplicity Ford remembers from her hometown.

Regardless, it is an environment she will fight to protect through both science and - like she did as a girl - letter-writing.

Ford recounts her most recent trip home from San Salvador. Paging through an in-flight magazine, she came across an article advertising tours of the island's Pigeon Creek where a tourism company would catch green sea turtles so vacationers could pet them.

"Well that area is a national park and those turtles are endangered!" says Ford, who, somewhere over the Atlantic, promptly took out her notepad and pen and began furiously scribbling letters.