Hobart & Wm Smith Colleges / Union College
2008 Queensland Term Abroad

Update 15 October - Australia Zoo

We recently made a bus trip up the coast to Beerwah to visit the Australia Zoo, where "Home of the Crocodile Hunter" is a big part of their marketing program. Steve Irwin's presence is still very much felt here, though Irwin's daughter, Bindie, Jungle Girl, is being groomed to take over as the face of the place. Though I went with (negative, frankly) preconceptions, it's a more complex place than that. It's simultaneously a zoological theme park and a place of education. Their model of education is hands-on exposure to the animals (not the crocs) with plenty of human educators around, rather than traditional emphasis on signage. Most zoos have reduced signage nowadays, but I personally miss that mode. Seems like you could have signage and interpreters, too, but that's me. In any event, it was fun and did in fact have something to offer.

The last of the pictures from Straddie here. Find pictures from our trip to Australia Zoo here

Can somebody please tell me if the Calendar is working now? I didn't know for ages because no one told me.

Update 14 October

Geological Postcards and new pics, too

The wonderful world of geology -- One of things we're working on in class is understanding landscape features. To that end everyone's going to be writing at least four geological "postcards" which will consist of a picture taken by the student and a short interpretive caption written to explain some of the features she's encountered. We hope they'll come rolling in soon. In the meantime, we've posted one as an example.

We're back from Heron Island, a tropical paradise, at least for some, situated smack on the tropic of capricorn. It's a beautiful place and everyone did smashing work on research projects investigating aspects of the reef system. Someday I'll even get some pictures up to show you.

I've made some formatting alterations that should be invisible to the browser, however, if some pages are suddenly displayed all wonky on your screen, please let me know.

There are some new pictures -- the last of our straddie adventures -- posted, too. See them here

Update 3 October

Picture improvements

Just a note -- found a bunch of link problems on some of the early pages and their indices. The should all now have been resolved. Please let me know if you find broken links and I'll fix them ASAP. As usual, please see the latest pictures for a peek into what we're up to.

Update 2 October

Seine Netting

Catching up with pictures -- Seine netting is a technique for catching fish in a hand-held net. The net is about 75 m long, 1.5 m high, and seems to weigh a ton. After the net is floated out into the Bay, a hardy team of fisher folk slip ankles through loops at the bottom of the net and grab the rope at the top. Then HEAVE! Slowly, they drag the net back toward shore, snaring a variety of unsuspecting fish. It was a great chance to sample the pelagic fauna (swimmers) and sing some sea shanties. One of the independent research teams repeated the process both at night and during the day to see differences in the species active. They caught a heap of rays during the nighttime sessions.

Now we've finally finished the dreaded midterms and have a few days of R&R before heading off to Heron Island on the southern Great Barrier Reef. Sounds like a lot of fun, eh. Remember, we're in class!

24 September

Blue Lake walk

Things are still remarkably busy for everyone -- midterms are in swing, research reports are due (tomorrow!), and everyone's got lots of plans for the next long weekend. Last week most everyone went either up the Sunshine Coast to Noosa and the beach or flew south to Sydney for some cosmopolitan fun. In class we've had a number of sections on the biology of fishes, marine plants, corals and coral conservation. We just had a couple of humdinger lectures by John on the Future Eaters hypothesis developed by Tim Flannery (in which Flannery links together Pleistocene extinctions with the origins of aboriginal firestick farming). It's an interesting idea that's engendered a lot of controversy. We've still got another week of classes in Brissie after this week; however, after that we'll be boarding our bus for an overnight trip up the coast to Heron Island!

With respect to pictures we're still catching up; please check out the latest addition -- two pages with images from a walk on North Stradbroke down to Blue Lake and a visit to 18 Mile Beach.

14 September

More of North Stradbroke Island

We've already been to Lamington National Park and back, but I'm still catching up with pictures from our trip to Straddie. I will catch up, I promise, but we are ferociously busy with classes, library visits, museum visits, Aussie Culture tutorials (can you name six famous Aussies?) in which students discussed their preconceptions about Australia and its people. It's revealing to hear what we all think of and what expectations are met and which are way off. In spite of long days in the classroom, everyone seems to be keeping up the attention. Nan and I seem to have our work cut out for us as we're often in the last slots of the day. We promise to catch up with the pictures, soon!

8 September

North Stradbroke Island

We are back, briefly, after a week long trip to North Stradbroke Island, a large sand island off the coast of Queensland. We did lots while we were there, including seeing whales, climbing giant dunes, and seeing koalas. Uploading pictures has been a challenge, however. I've dashed in this morning and have been able to send a few new pages, though there are may more waiting 'til I have better access -- which, given that we're heading for the rainforest in half an hour, will probably be some time next week. We shall see. In the meantime, see at least part of our adventures on the picture pages.

25 August

Arrival and Pictures!

The students have arrived! On 23 August we met the students at the Brisbane airport. They had already deplaned and almost all had made it through customs. (Zach's boots were retained for a thorough cleansing.) Everyone was tired but in good spirits. We quickly made our way to the bus (after first having to scale a fence), loaded up, then headed into campus. The bus was alive with chatter as everyone got a first look at Brisbane. The day was very fine — warm with clear blue skies. After a lunch at the Women's College dining hall, students received some last—minute instructions on homestays, then their host parents began to appear to whisk them off to their Aussie homes. See lots of pictures on the new picture pages.

21 August

We are down under

Just to let you know, Arens and Kendrick have arrived in Brisbane and are mostly over jet-lag. We're working with staff here at CMS to ensure your arrival goes smoothly on Saturday. We and Christine from CMS will meet you at the airport -- look for us after you clear customs and exit into the main terminal. Remember to leave all banned items ( e.g.most foods, jewelry with dried beans or wood beads, etc ...on the plane or in the amnesty bins located in the concourse before you reach immigration. Also, a friendly word of advice: Don't turn on your cell phone anywhere inside the immigration, baggage claim, or customs area. There is a very hefty ($1000) fine associated with this.
On a related theme, note that our phone contact numbers in OZ have changed. Please refresh the contacts page to make sure you get the correct numbers in case you need to get in touch (but not while you're in the quarantine area, please).

Reminders

Make sure you take care of these things before you leave for Brisbane --

• 1. Make arrangements for your absentee ballot. Voting is compulsory for Australian citizens; we will honor this practice as part of the Australian culture course. If you're a US citizen, make arrangements for your absentee ballot.
• 2. Purchase your field notebooks. See the equipment page for a description and link for purchase.
• 3. Read your assigned book. Here's a pdf of the list again: OZ Books.

Getting Ready

Soon you'll be thinking about what to bring. Here are some resources:

• The Term Abroad Handbook you received from the Center For Global Ed is packed with information
• The Orientation Guide provided by our hosts at the Center for Marine Studies has requirements and suggestions. Do read through it before you leave.
• The equipment and clothing page on this website is another resource.

30 July

You probably now hear the departure clock ticking -- there isn't much time left and it will fly by. We've added a New Zealand page with an interactive map showing where we'll be staying and some of the places we'll visit. The new page also features RSS feeds showing the latest seismic and volcanic alerts issued by the New Zealand Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences -- the equivalent of the USGS (US Geological Survey). Take a minute to check them out.

Speaking of clocks, we've also posted a Daily Calendar page. It's available through the menu on the left.

The Daily Grind page is also updated with some changes to what to expect your daily schedule to be like (See also the Daily Calendar page -- you can see what each day holds!) and a new tag added to the campus map showing the location of our classroom -- St. John's College.

We've also updated the contacts page with our cell numbers in Australia and New Zealand.

21 June

Update to the daily life page. Info from Centre for Marine Studies suggests that class schedules will likely vary more than previously. Some days may start and end early. Others may have lectures as late as 3 pm.

2 June

Update to mobile phone rental information on the Survival Guide page. The Center for Global Education has contracted with a company to provide phone and SIM card rentals for OZ/NZ.29 May

Extensive updates to survival guide and gear pages, including new page on what to expect day to day in Brisbane and in the field. Also changes to schedules page.

We will be updating the site as we have more material to share. If there's something not yet on line, feel free to email and ask. (Just be prepared for "we don't know yet".)