What is SWS?
The Short Answer
Southwest Studies (SWS) is an ensemble of summer university credit courses offered by Okanagan College for post-secondary students throughout Canada. Students have a unique opportunity to travel to and study several different biomes in Canada and the United States. We will study fascinating environments including the Rocky Mountain Glaciers and the Grand Canyon. This interdisciplinary curriculum gives students field experience with diverse ecological, literary and environmental issues and the ethical challenges they pose.
The Long Answer
We originally envisioned Southwest Studies as a set of courses that would highlight the differences between two very separate regions of North America (British Columbia and Arizona); two regions with vastly different climates, geographic and geomorphic characteristics, ecosystems, plant and animal communities. Each faces a very different set of challenges in light of human impact and global climate change. But as we developed the courses and made an exploratory trip to Arizona, like all good things, SWS evolved.
We have found that there are more similarities between the regions than the obvious differences. Northern Arizona and Flagstaff are home to the largest Ponderosa Pine forest in North America, not entirely different from the forests which surround Kelowna and Vernon. Arizona has vast changes in elevation going from 12,000 feet at Humphreys peak to 2,000 feet at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Similar elevation changes exist in the mountainous regions of British Columbia. The large alterations in elevation, and their resulting changes in temperature and moisture, affect the ecosystems, or life zones, seen in both locations. With the exception of the lower Sonoran Desert region (unique to Arizona), both British Columbia and Arizona have alpine tundra, alpine, boreal forest, transition, grasslands, and desert zones. As a result there are very similar animal and plant species located in these ecosystems. Both regions are transfixed by water: British Columbia has an abundance, while Arizona has very little. As a result both regions have sought to control water for very different reasons; one to harness and export its riches, the other to horde it for survival. Unfortunately, damming and diversion of large rivers brings with it unseen and unconsidered consequences for the environment.
Despite the similarities, there is one very large difference between the regions. Arizona has been home to large numbers of humans for thousands of years before British Columbia and was the destination for European/eastern colonization before British Columbia. It was heavily developed in the 1950’s and continues to grow at an astonishing rate given its limited resources. British Columbia’s growth and expansion has not been as dramatic. But the large scale infrastructure which we all rely upon was initiated in the 1970’s. Perhaps, then, Arizona can be used as a looking glass through which we can see our future, learn from it, and change it.