Innovation Showcases
Honoring the Ocean: Experiential Learning on the Interconnectedness of Humanities and Marine Science
Innovation Showcase
Catherine Wilkins
This presentation explores the creation, implementation, and evaluation of Honoring the Ocean, an inter-institutional experiential learning program designed to strengthen students’ understanding of the valuable connections between Humanities disciplines and Marine Science. While the ocean is both a driver and recipient of the human experience, and though nearly half the world population lives within 50 miles of the coast, many individuals - especially those from marginalized populations - struggle to feel connections to the sea. Honoring the Ocean is an interdisciplinary learning experience that seeks to ignite a deeper relationship between students and the marine environment by engaging in a multimodal, immersive study of the critical issues facing the sea and humanistic reflections thereof. Developed by the Florida Institute of Oceanography (FIO) and Honors partners at five Florida public universities, this innovative program brings together faculty, researchers, and Honors students from these institutions to explore relationship between people and the ocean through the lenses of various humanistic disciplines such as Art, Creative Writing, and History. This presentation will discuss the formation of the program, which includes a 6-week online synchronous mini-course, hands-on experience aboard a FIO research vessel, and creative reflection project. It explores how recruiting Pell-eligible first-year college students from Humanities majors and from historically underrepresented groups led to diverse perspective-taking and meaningful content exploration. Finally, results from student surveys and examples of reflective work are shared, demonstrating student learning outcomes around issues of interconnectedness and interdisciplinarity.
Hawaiian Star Compass - Mahalo Sea & Stars: Giving Thanks to the Koholā Nation
Innovation Showcase
Annette Lee,
Barbara Sarbin,
Tavia La Follette
Before we could see, we could hear. Each of us was born out of an underwater environment, our mother's womb. In that darkness, there was sound—our mother's heartbeat, breathing, perhaps bubbles. As a species, our senses shape our concept of identity and our world. Presented here will be a soundscape performance installation entitled “Hawaiian Star Compass- Mahalo Sea & Stars, Giving Thanks to the Koholā Nation”. This project implemented a 10-week interdisciplinary, co-creating model where students in the Kula 'Amakihi program at the Volcano School of Arts & Sciences teamed up with Native Skywatchers Nonprofit to design and deliver a professional-level design project. Students conceptualized and then fabricated a solution to the challenge: (1). How do you express mahalo/put down thanks for life through soundscape using whale song, the star compass, mo'olelo, and movement? (2). Can you create empathy through soundscape performance to show our human kuleana (responsibility) to ocean/land/sky environments? In the era of the Anthropocene, the real-time effects of the global climate crisis and animal extinction are increasingly common. Plastic pollution, forever chemicals, ocean acidification, deforestation, and the ever-growing list are enough to make anyone stop reading and walk away. This exhibit dares to reimagine our growing disconnection from nature, aims to foster a renewed sense of connection with the cosmos and increased clarity on our human roles and responsibilities. By centering Indigenous practices and knowledge alongside art as social practice and Western science practices, we hold the ‘gift of multiple perspectives for the benefit of all’.
