Field Season · May–August 2027

Field Courses

One to two weeks in the field with a working scientist, and academic credit at the end of it. The southern Blue Ridge is the classroom.

Length One to two weeks
Credit Academic credit awarded
Season May through August
Registration Opens early January

Our field courses go deep. Students spend full days collecting, keying, measuring, and thinking alongside instructors who have built careers on the biology of these mountains — then spend the evenings back in the lab with what they found.

Courses are designed for undergraduates, graduate students, and serious naturalists who want the credential as well as the experience. Housing is available on campus.

The kind of thing we teach

  • Macrofungi of the Blue Ridge

    Collection, identification, and preservation of the region’s mushrooms and their relatives, from field to microscope.

  • Southern Appalachian Salamanders

    Field and lab study of the world’s richest salamander fauna, in the place that made it famous.

  • Field Botany of the Southern Blue Ridge

    Plant identification across the full elevational sweep of the Plateau, from bog to summit.

MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
Courses run throughout the field season
Stay tuned

We are hard at work assembling the 2027 learning season. Like the spring ephemerals, the lineup surfaces when conditions are right — look for it in early January, when registration opens.

828-526-2602