ANTH*6800 is a gamechanger for graduate students looking for new ways to gain field research experience right here in Ontario. With its unique blend of academic excellence and hands-on immersion at your Toronto Zoo, this course is a part of the new Public Issues Anthropology course-based master's degree, a program that empowers students to confront urgent public issues with clarity, conviction, and lasting impact. At the University of Guelph, students don't merely learn; they lead, setting a new, inspiring standard for experiential learning and community engagement.
U of G is unveiling ANTH*6800 – Intensive Fieldwork: Community-Partnered Research in Public Issues Anthropology, crafted for forward-thinking students who are passionate about driving change. ANTH*6800 offers a six-week experience where students dive deep, balancing in-class learning with hands-on engagement. The course develops students' skills in qualitative research methods, anthropological fieldwork and analysis, and collaboration with a community partner, tackling society's urgent challenges head-on.
"The course is built around experiential, reflective, and participatory learning, giving students the opportunity to build relationships with research participants and a community partner in the field, gather meaningful data, reflect critically on their role as researchers, and learn through ongoing peer discussion and feedback. Grounded in the principles of public issues anthropology, this approach helps students translate their research and training into insights that matter to communities and inform broader social and policy conversations," remarks Dr. Satsuki Kawano, who developed the ANTH*6800 course in collaboration with the Toronto Zoo.
Experiential and Collaborative Learning
The next cohort of students will be on the front lines, working shoulder-to-shoulder with our community partner, the Toronto Zoo. Your Toronto Zoo is a community-funded conservation science organization and a world-class zoo dedicated to advancing evidence-based wildlife conservation. Its mission is to connect people, animals, conservation science, and traditional knowledge to fight extinction, with a vision of a world where people, wildlife, and wild spaces thrive.
The Zoo's Guardians of Wild Strategic Plan (2025–2028) strengthens this commitment by prioritizing conservation science and deeper collaboration with Indigenous knowledge systems to deliver measurable conservation outcomes. The partnership with the University of Guelph will expand the Zoo's research capacity by bringing social science approaches into conservation work.
This collaboration aims to support research on human attitudes, decision-making, and community engagement, helping identify how people understand biodiversity loss, climate change, and species protection, and how those insights can improve conservation practice. By integrating qualitative and anthropological methods, the partnership will generate research that complements biological and ecological studies and strengthens animal well-being and conservation impact.
Training Future Conservation Professionals
As both a research and teaching institution, Toronto Zoo plays an important educational role in training future conservation professionals and fostering public understanding of the biodiversity crisis. The partnership will create valuable experiential learning opportunities for students to develop skills in qualitative research, ethics, and interdisciplinary methods while contributing to real-world conservation challenges. In this way, the collaboration aligns with the Zoo's strategic emphasis on innovation, conservation science, and connecting communities to the work of protecting wildlife.
Ultimately, ANTH*6800 challenges students to bridge theory and practice, gathering vital insights that cross academic and community spheres. The journey culminates in a poster presentation of research findings that showcase students' ability as confident researchers and captivating communicators.
While ANTH*6800 is setting the new standard for experiential learning with collaborative partnerships like the Toronto Zoo, the University of Guelph continues to foster authentic connections with community partners, championing teamwork and sparking innovation. It is courses like these that develop trailblazers empowered to influence public policy and ignite meaningful change beyond the classroom.