Walking along the foothills of the northern Peruvian Amazon, 14 UVic environmental studies students—along with instructors Ana Maria Peredo and Kate Turner and mentors Murdith McLean and Frederique Apffel-Marglin—embarked on a unique learning experience this spring that wove together ecology, economy and spirituality in an Indigenous setting.
More than 60 years ago, the last Coast Salish residents of Tl'ches—the Chatham and Discovery islands off the eastern coast of Oak Bay—left to live on the Songhees Reserve in Esquimalt. But this summer, Lekwungen Coast Salish Elder Sellemah/Joan Morris, who grew up on Tl'ches, helped UVic and Songhees students in a UVic field school see the islands through their eyes—superimposing past and present.
The Stephens Family Undergraduate Research Award in Organic and Sustainable Food Systems gave Riley the means to expand the scope of her project from a rain catchment system to a water conservation initiative with lasting benefits to community partner Woodwynn Farms.
Helga Thorson is familiar with students feeling fazed at the end of four weeks of study of the Holocaust and its memorialization. Since 2011, she has led students at the I-witness Field School. Students are totally immersed in the material without distraction, which separates the field school experience from the classroom. Then there is the subject matter: the Holocaust and humanity’s immense responsibility to remember, even as those with first-hand knowledge are passing on.
Travelling abroad may sometimes seem the only way our students can enjoy international experiences. Here are some tips—just in time for International Education Week 2017 (Nov. 13-17)—on finding intercultural opportunities at UVic.
Students from the humanities, social sciences, fine arts and law—now back in Victoria after a transformative trip overseas and also in Winnipeg—came together for a powerful and challenging field school that brought them to historic sites in Europe and taught them valuable lessons about Canada.
UVic students are currently visiting historic sites in Europe in a field school examining migration, the refugee crisis and memorialization of the Holocaust. And the learning doesn't stop in Europe: they'll be at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights in mid August, then home to UVic for a symposium.
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How do you really live a field school experience? According to 23 UVic anthropology students, you start by going off the beaten track for 30 days in Cuba, the biggest island in the Caribbean. Some of our students created media projects about their experiences.
A new documentary, The Thinking Garden, about a unique farming collective in a small South African village carries lessons of hope and resilience. It was written and produced by UVic scholars Christine Welsh and Elizabeth Vibert and it officially launches on March 1.
Forensic anthropology course conducts in-death investigations. All jokes about popular TV shows like Sherlock and CSI aside, real-world forensic anthropologists who assist in identifying and locating of missing persons share a desire for problem solving, critical thinking and a deep curiosity. Stephanie Calce’s forensic anthropology class exposes students to the huge field of forensic science through hands-on projects. Spoiler alert: the students live.
Sabina Trimble—who graduates this month with an MA in history—will don a mortarboard on Nov. 9, but her fondest memory as a student was being blanketed and given a hand-woven cedar hat, in a traditional Coast Salish honouring at her defence in August 2016.
Heather Clark, a veteran tour guide and former publications coordinator for the European Association for International Education, has spent upwards of six months a year for the past 16 years traveling the world. That's in addition to completing two degrees here at UVic: a BA in Hispanic studies and an MFA in writing. Now she's putting all that experience to work with her new company and a proposed travel-writing field school for the writing department.
On Oct. 6, UVic released the International Plan: Making a World of Difference (2017-2022), bringing increased momentum to our ongoing commitment to welcome international students to an inspirational new home here and to foster intercultural learning and research for domestic students in Canada and across the globe.
A six-week archaeology field school brought the promise and challenges of the Pacific west coast to life for 19 enthusiastic anthropology students this summer. The group traveled to the west coast of Vancouver Island to do research at ancient First Nations settlements, and to learn archaeological field techniques and environmental and cultural history from Tseshaht and Huu-ay-aht First Nations, professional archaeologists, and marine ecologists at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre.
The Salish Sea is a vibrant international region, teeming with change—so it should come as no surprise that an international field school which puts dynamic learning experiences at the heart of sustainability leadership reflects those characteristics as well.
