2014 Essays

Evaluations and Broader Impacts: Moving beyond Youtube hits

Drew, Joshua Adam

I’m 48 hours away from leaving for six weeks in the field, my office looks like a combination of a the shipping dock and a outdoor supply store. Seriously duffle bags, so much duffle bags. But it’s good. I’m taking the lab out for a month of fieldwork. We are excited to continue our work in Nagigi and work with the community to understand how to best make marine reserves. However this year year I am making time to focus on doing outreach in-country, so the first three weeks we are spending in Fiji will be spent in Suva making connections and doing things which, in the NSF parlance, would be broader impacts.
The centerpiece of these activities is a weeklong course that we are teaching at the University of the South Pacific sponsored by the US Embassy. This course, which we are calling Fiji W.I.S.E. (workshop on international science education), will be a really great opportunity share cutting edge conservation science with students and conservation practitioners from the region. As of now we have 12 registered students from Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu, who have expertise from aquaculture to marine reserve design. The course will consist of morning lectures and afternoon field trips to local reefs and mangroves.