Forget crowded lecture halls and faded textbooks. This summer, Princeton University ecology and evolutionary biology professor James Gould will be teaching a four-week marine biology course in Bermuda to 15 rising juniors.

According to an article in Princeton University?s online newspaper, the Daily Princetonian, students have long desired a marine biology class at Princeton and many have chosen to take a course at another university either during the summer, or as part of a semester abroad.

The intensive four-week course will begin on June 5 next year and will feature labs involving snorkeling, sand collection and boat trips to study algae, coral reefs and other marine life.

Students in the course will have six days of class a week with two lectures daily, weekly precepts and a three to six-hour lab Mondays through Saturdays.

Through the four weeks, students will visit marine caves, rim reefs, North Lagoon, Castle Harbour and South Shore and Professor Gould will be co-teaching the course with Samantha de Putron from the Bermuda Biological Station for Research (BBSR) in what he calls a natural pairing.

?She knows a lot of marine biology and ecology and this course will bring together the physiology, ecology and behaviour of a wide variety of organisms,? he said.

Though students will have to pay $2,500 to go on the trip, the University is paying at least double that amount to subsidise the course.

The major source of funding comes from a sophomore initiative used to attract students to smaller departments, he added.

The Ecology, Evolution and Biology department had around 40 undergraduates last year and this year there are fewer, around the 30s.

While the University is trying to raise that number, Professor Gould has mixed feelings about raising the number of undergraduates in his department.

?Increasing the number of students might get more faculty members in the department. But if we just raise [the number of students without adding faculty members, then we won?t have enough time for all the seniors.?

Professor Gould, who designed and proposed the course, said Bermuda was an ideal location because it lies between the tropic and temperate zone and is home to a wide variety of plant and animal life.

?It is the only place on earth where you can find mangrove forests from the tropical region along with normally temperate Marine marshes.?

The course will be offered for three summers and after that its offering is conditional on receiving a more permanent endowment.

He said he has always had this repressed desire to do something marine and students have always been asking.

?We just needed a donor who would donate enough money to pump lots of salt into Lake Carnegie,? he said, adding that he was very optimistic about the upcoming program and held high hopes for the students. ?People should end up happy, well-informed and exhausted.?