Setting
This off-campus semester program is offered in the Netherlands - a small, densely populated country in Western Europe. The Netherlands is situated with Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and Great Britain across the English Channel to the west.With Calvin’s Dutch roots, this is a natural location for an off-campus semester program. More importantly, the Netherlands is a great place to study issues of environmental modification and sustainability.

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The Dutch have a long history of making significant modifications to their natural environment. They have drained wetlands and lakes, reclaimed flooded lands, and built massive, environment altering structures designed to protect the land from flooding. Human activities over many centuries has resulted in settlement of the ground surface in much of the low Netherlands creating a country where 65% of the land mass is below sea level at high tide. The Netherlands faces an uncertain future as global climate change and resulting sea level rise threatens their security with more intense flooding. Issues of flood safety, protection of the existing natural resources, and development of new green spaces dominates the environmental conversation.

The academic setting is the Free University of Amsterdam (see www.vu.nl). The Free University and Calvin have enjoyed a special relationship for over a century (reformed heritage, visiting scholars, joint conferences, graduate school for Calvin students). While the VU no longer promotes itself as a Christian university, it consistently lays a claim to the ethic of its religious roots and pockets of interest in Christian higher education remain in areas within the university. It is anticipated that students participating in this program will live with families in the Amsterdam/Amstelveen area. These families will be members of local Christian churches. Courses will be taken at the Free University of Amsterdam.

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Aerial photo of Free University Campus.

Link to Google map of campus.