Global Studies Institute (GSI) together with our affiliate The Australian College of Tropical Agriculture (ACTA) has accreditation within the Australian Qualifications Network under the guidance of the Australian National Training Authority. We offer a variety of qualifications to students in the field of Ecology & Conservation How we differ from an average institution is that we offer to formulate and customize an Ecology and Conservation related program to the specific needs of the individual or the group. The student or the overseeing professor can choose from our very extensive Conservation Subjects and create a course that best emphasises their particular area of interest. Alternatively if the required subject is not on our list, they could request the specific item, and within our network of experts and extensive resources in the field we will frame a program centering on the relevant topic in consultation with the students and/or professors. This service makes our institution unique in the world of Field Studies. We can also arrange for credits to be attained from the students own University or College. Through our 'Organisation Membership Program', subject units and content are selected in consultation with the Academic Dean from the institution the student is presently enrolled with, to ensure suitable credits are achieved. Our programs are so flexible that they can vary in length from 3 weeks to 3 years depending on the choice of units and the qualifications or credits required.

Our Affiliate College The Australian College of Tropical Agriculture An established training institution of 30 years experience, presently teaching, inter alia, environmental education under the Conservation and Land Management (CALM) package. The college is based in North Queensland but functions across Northern, Far Northern and Western Queensland as well as the Queensland coastal belt, with links to all parts of country and metropolitan areas. The college operates through three business units supported by a corporate services centre based in Townsville, NQ. The business units operate independently, each with their own focus, but linked by the same ethos: Learners achieve by doing, not by listening and watching

An example of a 3 week short program formulated for a private institution that wanted their students to have an International Open Water Diving Certificate to study Reef Ecology and at the same time have an introduction to Rainforest Conservation can be viewed here: Special Course #0103

The prime location of our headquarters and field study site within the World Heritage listed Wet Tropic Rainforests of Queensland and our close proximity and facilities to The Great Barrier Reef

makes us a unique institution to teach and train in the field of Ecology and Conservation. The area we have chosen to set up our various field-study sites in the Tablelands and the coastal regions of North Queensland, Australia also boasts some of the most varied natural ecosystems in the world.

We pride ourselves on developing new initiatives in active learning courses.

Global Studies Institute as an Experiential Educator provides a process through which a learner constructs knowledge, skills, and value from direct experience. Other theories of education classify students as passive receivers of information. Our education theory takes a different approach. Involving students as active learners, they become equal partners in the learning process.

Experiential Learning is composed of three components:

• Knowledge - Concepts, facts, information and any prior experience
• Action - The application of this knowledge to the present situation, and
• Reflection - The thoughtful analysis and assessment of one's own actions and its contribution to personal growth.

• Addresses the needs and wants of the learner
• Learning is undertaken in order to solve a problem or engage in a meaningful task
• Qualities include: personal involvement, learner initiation and control, learner self-assessment
• Significant learning happens when the task and content are relevant to the learner (and the learner decides this!)
• Learning takes place in a low-risk environment
• Self-initiated learning has a longer shelf-life

With the effects of massive resource utilization brought about by the industrial revolution, population explosion and earth's growing unsustainability to absorb such effects, perhaps nature has chosen to educate humankind about the consequences of our future. It is our task to listen and to learn; to research and report; and to attempt to right the wrongs the past exploitation of the earth has caused.

Education seeks to expand our minds into realms of new possibilities and into unknown schools of thought. With a bag of knowledge and skills that we accumulate through time, we learn how to apply the proper tool under the selected circumstance. The earth's growing environmental concerns and epidemics have chosen to guide us all into exploring new areas of understanding appropriate to the now, in order to build a better future for tomorrow. We've all been told to think globally but to act locally. Yet we must define the necessary skills available as our resources to address local, as well as international environmental problems.

A common misconception is that economic development and resource utilization are incompatible goals. Earlier in human history, when the disparities between economic and environment were not so apparent, numerous natural resources were irrevocably compromised resulting in overexploitation of resources, unaccounted waste and pollution adverse effects on habitats. The excessive focus on economic gain for the now, resulted in a heavily compromised future which today's societies are attempting to address. Environmental problems in the 21st Century are no longer isolated and autonomous - a global world has expanded to include global environmental crises. We have learned, through our common resources and our common futures, that we are all contributors to the earth's intricate environmental web.

Environmental Education should seek to bridge such relationships of conflict and implement strategies of economic sustainability without expense to the environment. This is not simply a question of non-economic concerns outweighing economic ones. It is a matter of educating ourselves to the whole picture and the patterns of our world's natural environment. Though history and modern society can direct us to numerous examples of such incompatibility, more and more individuals are attempting to develop common strategies of economic and environmental sustainability.

Economics and the Environment: There is a need to do away with mistaken conceptions of economic benefit at the expense of our environment. Just as young people are taught to go forth and prosper and to attain a good job and a house with a white picket fence, so too can the young and old be taught to develop knowledge and connections relating to economic gain and environmental awareness. Skills and attitudes, which enable us to fully account for land and resource management and to provide necessary solutions for environmental sustainability, need to be incorporated into learned lessons. Understanding as though our futures depended on it - for it does.