While many college students flock to Hawaii over spring break for rest and relaxation, 10 Pomona students spent their week on the island of Oahu dissecting albatross, searching for invasive snails and restoring a traditional Hawaiian fishpond.
The students are enrolled this semester in the course Conservation of Biodiversity in a Changing World, co-taught by Willard George Zoology Professor of Biology Nina Karnovsky and Associate Professor of Biology Wallace Meyer. Together they traveled to Oahu for nine days last month to carry out conservation work on the island.
Why Hawaii? In addition to being more accessible as a domestic location, Karnovsky reasoned, “Let’s go to where there are these amazing people and organizations working on really innovative, culturally relevant conservation.”
For the first half of the semester, students read scientific papers each week written or selected by a collaborator in Hawaii. After reading the paper, the students Zoomed with the collaborator to discuss and ask questions about their research. Students learned about such topics as marine animals caught unintentionally during fishing, conservation work to save seabirds from sea level rise and introduced predators, and the cultural and ecological role of fishponds.
Throughout this first phase of the class, Karnovsky and Meyer also worked closely with the International and Domestic Programs Office to prepare for the logistics of the trip. As the second Pomona College Faculty-Led Program (the first was led by Associate Professor of Politics Mietek Boduszyński last May to Belgium and Morocco), there were many plans to be laid, from securing accommodations (a surf hostel on the North Shore) to renting—and driving—vans on the trip to procuring water shoes for each student. Thanks to generous gifts from Robert D. ’68 and Diane Piety, Benjamin Godsey ’95, and Yvonne Chan ’95 among other donors, the program was not only highly subsidized but also offered need-based and merit-based scholarships to make it as accessible and equitable as possible.
Once they landed on the island, the itinerary was filled with experiences that, according to biology major Eli Taub ’25, “I would never get to do as a tourist.”
Day one was spent at Kaena Point State Park observing the techniques used to keep non-native predators out of a reserve and assisting with monitoring Laysan albatross. The second day included dissection with collaborators at Hawaii Pacific University of black-footed albatross killed in longline fisheries.
The third and fourth days took them to the Bishop Museum, learning from curators about the role that the collections play in conserving Hawaii’s biodiversity. “It was amazing to see both the public facing exhibits and conservation work being done in the collections,” says Karnovsky. At the museum, they also learned to identify native and invasive snails, preparing the group for the next day at a snail enclosure in the mountains. With the help of a trained snail-sniffing dog, the students spent the day searching for invasive snails that eat native snails.
On Thursday, they visited the James Campbell Reserve to assist with restoring populations of seabirds, checking nests and adult seabirds and cutting invasive plants, and on Friday they participated in restoration work in a traditional Hawaiian fishpond. “It was one of our most tiring days, but it was so cool because we got to work with people from the community and to hear how important the fishponds are to Hawaiian culture and history,” says Anji Sipkins-Chenn ’27, also a biology major.
They rounded out the trip snorkeling and observing tropical fish and turtles on their last day.
Reflecting on the trip, Sipkins-Chenn says that each day was better than the last. Moreover, she says, “We were doing tangible, helpful work for the people we were collaborating with, which meant that we weren’t just taking from the community, but we were also trying to give back.”
Meyer says that one of the most important aspects of the trips was students being able to engage with young graduate students and technicians and hear how they got to where they are. “The trip showed me that there are a lot of different paths that I haven’t considered yet and more opportunities than I thought within the conservation realm,” says Sipkins-Chenn.
Now that the students are back on campus, the work continues. For the third phase of the class, students will tell the story of a species of snails via a blog or pamphlet, record a podcast with one of the collaborators, and write a scientific grant proposal.
“That’s Prof. K’s model,” says Taub. “Any class you take with her, she wants you to not just be good at writing papers but good at all the different sides of being a scientist.”
Faculty interested in developing a Faculty-Led Program should meet with Annie Lam, assistant director of Pomona programs and domestic programs, to discuss their idea along with the program development process and timeline.