After a tearful goodbye, I boarded the eco-friendly,
ethanol-dependent, renovated church bus and headed for the Marine Lab. I was
going to Winter Forum, which is a two-day conference that focuses on a specific
worldwide problem. This year, it was titled “Blue Devils and the Deep Blue Sea:
How can we rescue the oceans?” We were split into 9 groups of 10 students each,
with 2 advisors per group. We also formed 3 clusters, which were composed of 3
groups each. Each cluster was presented with a scenario and each group
represented a different stakeholder in the situation. Our cluster was faced
with a development company wanting to build a hotel and a series of homes on a
pristine portion of wetlands located on Emerald Island (about 10 minutes away
from the Marine Lab). The developers were met with opposition from a non-governmental
organization that protects wetlands and a water quality control group. My group
represented the Wetlands NGO, "Friends of Carteret County Wetlands". On Sunday, we met with our groups and were
introduced to the problem so we could start thinking about what actions we were
going to take. After dinner, we had a humanities hour and President Brodhead
spoke about Moby Dick. The way he described it made me really want to read it…
and then he told us the ending. Who does that?! I was not happy, but I think
I’ll still end up reading the book. Afterwards we had a bonfire with s’mores,
even though it was drizzling.
At the end of the night, we played trivia! The first section
was all about the oceans (woohoo!), but the second section was miscellaneous
(bleg).
Yes, I know what animals make up the phylum Porifera.
No, I have no idea what Snooki named her baby.
Our group of six had a good mix of knowledge areas and we
ended up coming in second place!
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