Professors Kelley Calvert & Laura Burian with their classes at Hopkins Marine Station in Monterey
In education today, a great deal of dialogue focuses upon this question: “What does it mean to be educated in a biosphere that is suffering ecological degradation at a rate that is unparalleled in human history at a time when demand for ecosystem services is growing rapidly?”[1] In response to such calls, there has emerged a Middlebury-MIIS initiative to develop creative approaches to incorporating sustainability concepts and practices in the classroom.
Hyuk is holding a baleen which is a filter-feeder system inside the mouth of blue whales.
To these ends, students in Kelley Calvert’s English for Academic & Professional Purposes course, “Focus on Sustainability,” visited Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station on September 18th, 2012. Students toured the marine station, learning about its history as well as Monterey Bay’s transformation from industrial wasteland to marine sanctuary. Following the tour, marine biologist and writer Dr. Stephen Palumbi spoke to the class about his book Death and Life of Monterey Bay: A Story of Revival.
The class had the privilege of being joined by Chinese and Japanese interpreters from Professor Laura Burian’s translation and interpretation course. The interpreters provided simultaneous interpretation of the tour, Palumbi’s lecture, and the Q & A session following.
But enough with background information and introductions… Let’s hear what the students have to say about their experiences!
Our Experience with the Tour
Our visit to the Hopkins Marine Center was an enriching experience. Our awesome tour guide, Joe Wible, showed us around in the research center. We had the chance to see beautiful antique pieces of porcelain from the Chinese village and Esalen/Costanoan people. Also, we were given a piece of a baby whale baleen. Joe gave us useful and surprising information about how huge a blue whale can be, almost the size of three or four school buses, which is unbelievable! He also talked of how the fishermen attracted the squid to the nets with the light of the lanterns they used. This practice gave birth to the Festival of Lanterns celebrated every year in Pacific Grove. One more thing that we learned from his explanation was that the researchers in the Hopkins Marine Station can use the library for 24 hours a day!!
When we came out from the library, what was striking was the size of squid decoration hanging from the ceiling. It was interesting to learn that their life cycles changed subject to weather conditions such as el nino. Furthermore, it was startling that it could grow up to 20 meters.
Our Experience with Stephen Palumbi’s Lecture
Among the different activities of the tour at the Hopkins marine station, the most interesting one was the lecture of Mr. Palumbi. His lecture was a live narration of The Death and life of Monterey Bay : A Story of Revival, which we read in class. His lecture was exploratory and informative. It answered all of our questions and gave us a deeper understanding of the book. For example, thanks to Palumbi, we understood that Monterey Hopkins Marine Center really set up sustainable restrictions to protect marine life. Most of all, we could obtain precise insights about environmental issues that have occurred in Monterey Bay from the 18th century. We also learned the importance of human economic diversity. Finally, we took a picture in front of this beautiful point!
Our Experience with the Interpreters
We were very glad to have Chinese and Japanese T&I students joining us. We thought they skillfully interpreted between the languages; they provided technical terms and animals’ names in both Japanese and Chinese. Additionally, they interpreted our questions very accurately although we did not express them very clearly.
As a listener to the Japanese interpretation, I felt the difficulty of interpreting to one’s non-native language because it seemed challenging to interpret technical vocabulary. Then, I felt the significance of learning vocabulary as one of the greatest ways to acquire foreign language skills.
They served as a bridge between us and the lecturer,Dr. Steve Palumbi. As listeners, they paid attention as I asked my question and then translated it for the speaker. Moreover, thanks to their efforts, we understood more from the lecture.
[1] Tom Kelly. Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Higher Education. The Sustainable Learning Community. (New Hampshire: University of New Hampshire Press, 2009), 13.
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