Louisiana is disappearing at an alarming rate. Find out why.

With three-quarters of the world covered in water—and with more of the land covered by ocean every day—it makes sense that Williams-Mystic students explore as much of it as they can.

With its rich history, romanticized literary image, incredible biological and geological resources and pressing environmental and policy challenges, a field seminar to the Mississippi Delta and the Gulf of Mexico adds an exciting new dimension to the Williams-Mystic experience.

National Geographic's October 2004 issue highlights the region's challenges in the feature "Gone with the Water." Eighty percent of Louisiana lies below sea level, and with a combination of sediment changes, new species being introduced to the habitat and subsidence and sea-level rise, Louisiana is losing the equivalent of more than 20 football fields of wetlands every 24 hours.

Williams-Mystic students explore these issues first hand as we journey along the Mississippi's banks and Louisiana's gulf coastline. You'll speak to shrimp fishermen and alligator wranglers. You steam down the Mississippi River on the stern-wheeler Natchez, seeing Mark Twain's river of yesteryear and the overwhelming industry and commerce along its banks today. By experiencing this region you come to understand its heritage and incredible resources.

To explore the Delta's ecological importance, you will journey in, on and around the area's waterways. You will canoe deep into Louisiana marshes and travel to oil rigs 20 miles offshore. The landscape is drastically changing along the Delta. Driving through water-soaked towns that now consist only of a narrow strip of land with water on either side, you'll see submerged trees and telephone poles that just a few years ago were on dry land. These complex environmental and policy issues reflect the ever-changing face of the Mississippi Delta and the Gulf of Mexico.