On April 5th and 12th, Oberlin students presented on their experiences on their study trips to Sichuan province and Hong Kong. Both students and faculty reflected on their experiences and the meaningful connections they made to their collaborators, as well as relationships between their interdisciplinary aspects of each collaborators’ research.
For the Sichuan trip, which focused on national park management at religious and historic sites in the province, the trip served both as a practicum in the pros and cons of ecological tourism, and as an opportunity to collect water samples at tourist locations for future research on water quality between Oberlin Professor of Geology Amanda Schmidt and Sichuan University Professor of Biology Tang Ya. The students demonstrated how their experiences reinforced this relationship, and encouraged future international collaboration between the institutions and individuals through shared experiential learning juxtaposed amongst a biodiverse, mountainous landscape.
The students who went to Hong Kong reflected on their service learning experiences with the students and mentors at Lingnan University. For some students, as well as the trip leader Tania Boster, the trip had a significant impact on their own service learning techniques and experiences through the Bonner Center at Oberlin. For others, their experiences affected their notions of cultural and ecological preservation, and how these notions are perpetuated through pedagogy, art, and the built environment. This trip has inspired future collaborations between Oberlin and Lingnan University, including the hope of an exchange service learning program.
Overall these presentations showcased the remarkable successes of the trips and the impact these experiences had on both students and faculty at Oberlin and the collaborative institutions, and the longstanding relationships these visits celebrated. These trips were funded through the generous contributions from the Luce Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment (LIASE) grant awarded to Oberlin, and received institutional support from Oberlin Shansi, the Bonner Center, Oberlin Conservatory, and the departments of Biology, Environmental Studies, East Asian Studies, Geology, History, Religion, and Sociology.