A chance to study abroad can be one of the most instructional and eye-opening chapters in a student’s education. Simply being in another country, immersed in a new culture, can be educational in its own right — but going abroad with specific educational or research goals takes travel to whole other level.
“I think you learn a lot about yourself traveling,” said Dr. Avery Cook Shinneman, associate teaching professor in the UW Bothell’s School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences,. “Academically, having the chance to compare your way of doing things to the way you see it in other places is incredibly valuable.
For those who are passionate about the environment, getting a firsthand look at the challenges faced by another country and how people there respond to them is especially important to understanding environmental science and sustainability issues.
“It’s great to see different parts of the world,” Shinneman said, “and New Zealand is a really interesting place to learn about the environment.”
In summer 2024, she led five students from the University of Washington Bothell on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience a place unlike any other on the planet: the island nation of New Zealand.
Familiar struggles in another place
Shinneman’s teaching and research focus on environmental science, with a particular interest in aquatic systems and how they are affected by climate change. The idea to create a study abroad experience for students grew from a trip she took while on sabbatical in 2023.
She was surprised by how similar the island’s environmental challenges — such as invasive species — are to Washington state but with key differences in how recent human history and public policy have shaped the island’s response to these challenges. It seemed like the perfect place for students to learn about a topic relevant to their home and buoyed by the excitement of travel.
“You’re just awestruck by things when you don’t take them for granted,” Shinneman said. “In the year that I spent there, I remember how remarkable the birds were. All of a sudden, I became a birder, and I carried around an app to learn about all of the birds. And then I came home and there are a lot of birds here. They’ve always been there, but I never really took note of them before.
“There’s something to be said for not taking for granted what’s around you all the time and having that shake up your thinking a little bit.”
An array of academic interests
The three-week trip was part of a UW-wide study abroad program, with students from all three campuses representing a range of majors. Co-leading the group alongside Shinneman was Dr. James Gawel, a professor of environmental engineering and chemistry at UW Tacoma.
“New Zealand was my top choice since I’m interested in restoration,” said Ollie Moffat, a UW Bothell senior majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies and minoring in Ecological Restoration. “It was a chance for me to push my limits by flying to another country but also a good way to ease myself into it a bit by going there as part of a school trip to an English-speaking country.”
The students learned about a number of environmental topics, with invasive species taking center stage. Right after they stepped off the plane, they experienced the tight measures New Zealand takes to avoid invasive species from entering the country as the students went through a complex biosecurity screening process at the airport.
“Because it’s an island nation and they have no native mammals, apart from some small bats, the impact of invasive species has been huge,” Shinneman said. “It’s a really clear place to learn about invasive species, and the work to eradicate them is at a level you don’t see in the U.S.”
Once they got through the screening, the students were able to explore a number of different topics that intersect with invasive species management — from science to public policy.
Hands-on environmental work
The group got up-close looks at different ways of handling invasive species, including large technological solutions such as a massive steel wall dividing a lake in two and smaller community efforts such as a wetland that two men took it upon themselves to restore.
Students not only observed restoration work by others in action. They also got hands-on experience participating in a number of projects. They planted trees. They gathered samples from various bodies of water and later went to a lab to learn how to do DNA extractions in the search for golden clams, an invasive species.
For Rory Comstock, a UW Bothell junior majoring in Conservation & Restoration Science, the experience aligned well with his goal for studying abroad.
“I hoped to get a more hands-on experience with environmental work, and this trip definitely provided that,” he said. “I was surprised how both similar and dissimilar New Zealand was environmentally and culturally to the U.S. I loved learning about Māori culture and the land’s significance to the Māori people. I loved how the land overall is regarded so heavily there by both the people and the government, much unlike the U.S.”
One of the many unique aspects of New Zealand, Shinneman noted, is how relatively short its human history is compared with the rest of the inhabited world. This makes it an ideal place to study the human relationship to the environment.
“I hoped to get a more hands-on experience with environmental work, and this trip definitely provided that.”
Rory Comstock, junior, Conservation & Restoration Science
The search for good enough
Because humans didn’t arrive on the island until the 13th-14th century, the evidence of change caused by humans is more pronounced than places where human habitation dates back to prehistory. Today, a desire to protect and manage the land as close to its native state as possible is a shared goal for the government and the Māori people.
During the trip, the students connected with a variety of people working in the environmental space, including Indigenous community members, scientists and policy workers. Apart from the science, students were asked to consider the question: How much restoration is enough?
“One objective was to consider the philosophical and policy-based side of things, how we think about restoration and what we mean when we say we want to restore something or protect it,” Shinneman said. “We did a lot of talking about, ‘How good is good enough? What does it mean to be restored? How extreme do you have to make it good for the environment?’”
She pointed out that while New Zealand aims to eradicate most invasive species, some have become integral to the culture and the economy of the nation such as trout hatcheries and New Zealand’s iconic sheep industry.
Bringing it all home
Much like Shinneman’s newfound appreciation for birds, the UW students, upon their return, were primed to take notice of invasive species eradication efforts in their own state.
One of the biggest challenges in Washington currently, Shinneman said, is the New Zealand mud snail, which the students had the opportunity to see in its native habitat.
Some efforts are being made to curb invasive species in the state, such as voluntary boat checks, but the students were able to see that the work here is in stark contrast compared to the level of funding and resources New Zealand devotes to such causes.
“Seeing these problems and possible solutions somewhere else and then coming back to apply that to your own context gives such a different lens for you to think about what’s good and bad — and different approaches for how and why we do things,” she said. “It’s the kind of perspective you can only get from traveling and seeing it firsthand.”
For students who may someday work in public policy or doing boots-on-the-ground science, Shinneman said, the knowledge, ideas and questions they brought home from this trip could someday help shape this country’s future responses to invasive species.
