Biology and Geomorphology of Tropical Islands is a semester-long University of California, Berkeley course officially known as Integrative Biology 158 and Environmental Science, Policy, and Management 107. The class includes a nine-week field research expedition to Moorea, French Polynesia, where students live and work at the Richard B. Gump South Pacific Biological Research Station. The core purpose of the course is to move undergraduates from the lecture hall into professional field science by requiring them to design and implement their own original research projects. Students spend three weeks at Berkeley preparing for the trip, nine weeks on the island for reconnaissance and research, and two weeks back on campus for final presentations. The curriculum is interdisciplinary, covering topics such as marine and terrestrial biology, geology, botany, oceanography, and anthropology. Since the course began in 1991, hundreds of students have completed original research that is presented at an annual symposium and published in a distributed series of research books.