IFSA Study in Sri Lanka: Research Program

The Study in Sri Lanka: Research Program provides an opportunity to become part of a rich legacy of student-scholars observing, engaging with, and learning from communities in Kandy and across this vibrant island. All students will complete a field-based research project, conducted intensively during the final month of the semester abroad.

REQUIRED CLASS

Directed Research

This course offers a unique opportunity for undergraduates to delve deeply into meaningful research of their own design. Topics that address current issues in Sri Lanka such as environmental conservation, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, communicable diseases, human rights, post-conflict reconciliation, women’s issues, and social equity are highly encouraged. The process of research and discovery will be supervised by a faculty guide, and other scholars from relevant fields will be available for consultation. Students must receive approval from the University of Peradeniya before embarking on their intensive fieldwork period during the final month of the semester. Upon completion, students present a formal research paper at a symposium. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

LANGUAGE CLASSES

Developing skills in a foreign language can profoundly impact your life personally and professionally. Though language study (other than Essential Sinhala) is not required, students frequently report their language class as one of their favorites and the one they applied most outside the classroom. Because of the immersive research experience you will have, you are strongly encourage to enroll in a full language elective to prepare yourself to make the rich of this incredible opportunity and interact respectfully with the communities hosting you.

Essential Sinhala

Essential Sinhala is taught intensively during the first two weeks of the semester for those students without a Sinhala language background. It has two focuses: to equip students with essential communication skills, key words, and phrases, to engage in basic conversations, as well as build their ability to read basic signs and request emergency assistance; and to promote students’ understanding of the local environment and culture in contemporary Sri Lanka and enhance their language skills in real world settings. (1 U.S. semester credit hour)

Beginning Sinhala I 

Language instruction in colloquial Sinhala, emphasizing functional use of the language in contexts that students can be expected to encounter in daily life. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Coming Fall 2024 - Beginning Tamil I 

Fundamentals of conversational and written Tamil for beginning students. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

ELECTIVE CLASSES

Not all electives may be offered in a given semester depending on enrollment.

Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Management

With over 250,000 archaeological sites, present-day Sri Lanka represents the collective and diverse traditions of art, architecture, literature, and religion that have been practiced by numerous groups. This course focuses on cultural heritage as the physically grounded and historically evolved patterns in the built environment, traditional practices, intangible concepts, and cultural landscapes. Students examine the development of cultural heritage management and its contemporary significance in Sri Lanka, while gaining experience with established documentation, assessment, and conservation practices of cultural heritage resources worldwide. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Biodiversity in Sri Lanka 

The course focuses on one of the world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots, how it evolved, and its relationships with sustainable development and conservation in a case study of Sri Lanka. Though field visits, students gain in-depth knowledge of Sri Lanka’s flora and fauna—from rice and orchids, to junglefowl and elephants—and assess first-hand the impact of habitat destruction, human population growth, climate change, and other factors affecting biodiversity. This course provides a foundation to inspire students to become informed decision-makers and contribute towards the conservation of the world’s biodiversity. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Coming Fall 2024 - Climate Change Impacts in Tropical Ecology

This course examines the consequences of the climate changes on the Island and covers the management of coastal dynamics and the risks. The course is interdisciplinary in nature and explores how physical geography, human geography, social sciences, public policy, engineering, and ecology are all fundamental to managing coastal climate change risks for ecosystems and society. also, it will explore the core concepts including risk, vulnerability, and adaptation to coastal climate change, drawing on real life examples from Sri Lanka and around the world. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Coming Fall 2024 - Ethnicity and Politics in Sri Lanka

This course provides an introduction to ethnicity and politics in Sri Lanka. The course begins with a conceptual discussion on ethnicity, identity politics, ethno-nationalism, and changing dynamics of ethnicity. The discussion topics include the impact of ethnicity on electoral politics, conflict, democracy, governance, development, and reconciliation. The aim of the course is to explore why and how ethnicity has emerged as an important factor in shaping social processes, political dynamics, and social conflict in contemporary Sri Lanka. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Gender, Identity, and Culture

There is no pre-conceived and ready-made category called “Sri Lankan women” into which all women in Sri Lanka fit. This class surveys the principal factors impacting the gendered identity and status of women in post-colonial, post-independence Sri Lanka. Students explore the production and reproduction of women from a cultural perspective, then examine the materiality of women’s lives as determined by prevailing legal, economic, and political structures. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Coming Fall 2024 - Global Food Systems

The dominant influence of food production on agricultural ecosystems means that ecosystems risk reaching tipping points beyond which they lose the ability to provide people with food and other vital services. It then offers a tool for integrating climate change and ecosystem service risks into decision making and a framework for reconciling food production and conservation goals. To meet food security and conservation goals we need to move from managing ecosystems for food at the expense of other ecosystem services to managing ecosystems for food plus other nature-based services. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

International Conflict and Peace Building

This interdisciplinary course examines international conflict resolution, philosophies of peace, and post-accord peacebuilding, reviews the theories regarding the causes of international conflicts and peace, explores the approaches for enduring resolution to international conflicts, building peace, and the promotion of a global civil society. This course will address the conceptualization of peace and the implementation of peacebuilding projects by global, regional, national, and local actors, including the UN, development agencies and donors, INGOs, and local organizations in conflict-affected environments with a specific focus on Sri Lanka. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Living Religious Traditions in Sri Lanka

This course, taught by a team of faculty and local scholars, provides insights into the religious life of various ethnic communities in Sri Lanka: Sinhala Buddhists, Tamil Hindus, and Muslims. It will include an examination of different forms of worship at home and in religious shrines, healing rituals as well as rites of passage. The course also explores inter- and intra-religious tensions as well as common ritual practices that intersect religious boundaries. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Coming Fall 2024 - Primate Evolution

The course will concentrate on basic evolutionary mechanisms and theory of evolution by natural selection, concepts of fitness and adaptation, genetic and developmental bases of evolutionary change, modes of speciation, molecular evolution, principles of systematic biology etc. Also, use animal and plant examples to illustrate and clarify fundamental concepts in evolution. Knowledge of these and biogeographic changes are used to develop the ideas of species and speciation, to construct phylogenies, and to interpret the fossil record and patterns of extinction. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)

Sustainable Tourism

Sri Lanka’s tourism industry is a major user of biological resources. In addition to nature-based ecotourism, many aspects of tourism, through both marketing and in-person experience, are dependent on Sri Lanka’s natural environment. In this class, students build foundational knowledge of sustainable tourism in Sri Lanka and gain adequate knowledge in principles of environment conservation and management in protecting biodiversity, natural resources, and cultural heritage which in turn greatly benefit the sustainable tourism industry. (3 U.S. semester credit hours)