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Cathedrals, Museums, Crepes and Oysters— Beaufort Signature Students Experience the Environment and French Maritime Culture in Brittany
By Tim Lucas
Most postcards from France show scenes of cathedrals, museums, bistros and vineyards.
But when Sarah Eminhizer and four of her fellow students at the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort traveled to Brittany last fall, the electronic postcards they posted on the Nicholas School’s homepage showed a different side of French culture.
Among other things, their cards showed ostreiculture, (the cultivation of oysters), mytiliculture (the cultivation of mussels), and algalculture (the cultivation of seaweed), and offered insights on differences between the management of French and American national parks.
“It was fascinating to see how advanced the French are in some of these fields and to witness the different approach they take, not only to their environment but in their daily lives,” says Eminhizer, a second-year Coastal Environmental Management student at the Nicholas School.
Interacting with scientists, park managers, oyster farmers and other Bretons outside the major tourist meccas “let us get beneath the surface,” Eminhizer says. “We came away with a much deeper understanding” of French maritime culture.
The trip to Brittany was part of an intensive, seven-week course, “Human- Coast Interaction in France,” taught by Duke Marie Lab Director Cindy Van Dover. It’s one of a growing number of Beaufort Signature Travel Courses that combine scholarly investigation at the Marine Lab with firsthand exploration of environmental hotspots and sites of scientific, cultural and historic significance worldwide.
The students had plenty of chances to soak up Brittany’s celebrated ambience in between lessons, Eminhizer adds. They toured Mont St. Michel, hiked to Cap de le Chevre, explored the lighthouse and ancient abbey at Pointe St. Matthieu, and ate their fill of crepes and shellfish bisque. But even during these activities, the goal was cultural immersion, not merely sightseeing.
Several Beaufort Signature courses are offered each year in spring and fall. They are open to undergraduate, graduate professional and doctoral students from Duke and other universities.
In addition to Van Dover’s course, recent offerings have included “Biology and Conservation of Sea Turtles” in Trinidad, taught by assistant research professors Scott and Karen Eckert; “Urban Tropical Ecology” in Singapore, taught by Dan Rittschof, professor of zoology; and “Marine Ecology of the Pacific” in California, taught by Larry Crowder, Stephen Toth Professor of Marine Biology.
Other recent courses have focused on tropical ecology in Panama, coastal geology along the U.S. East Coast, and marine conservation biology in Hawaii.
“Offering intensive field trip courses led by our own faculty is one thing that makes our Marine Lab program a superb experience for students,” says Van Dover, who coined the “Beaufort Signature” name to help market the distinctive courses shortly after her arrival at the Marine Lab in 2006.
She says the educational philosophy of Marine Lab courses has always been linked to experiential learning, where students live beside the environment they are studying and where insights are often generated by the student rather than conveyed by the instructor. The Beaufort Signature courses build on this foundation by allowing students to develop new knowledge and skills on immersive field trips that take them out of their comfort zones and place them in new, and often surprising, environments.
“It gets back to the old adage that going abroad helps you understand your own environment better,” Van Dover says. “You begin to relate one set of observations with another, and to discover for yourself similarities, contrasts and creative solutions.”
“It was eye-opening to see the difference in mariculture between France and the United States,” agrees Theresa Davenport, a Gettysburg College biology and environmental studies major who was enrolled in Van Dover’s course as a visiting undergraduate at the Duke Marine Lab.
“As Americans, we tend to think we’re always the leaders, but the French are much more advanced than us in terms of oyster and mussel culture. Seeing it firsthand, and realizing there is this entire culture of people in Brittany who dedicate their lives to the survival of these tiny marine creatures, gave me a new perspective,” Davenport says.