Clearwater High School students work on environmental art projects.
Eckerd College junior Carly Harshbarger couldn’t help but be impressed.
As the environmental studies and Spanish student from Oviedo, Florida, snapped pictures of the Clearwater High School students painting and sculpting art based on environmental topics, she says she felt pride and awe at her own contribution.
“I loved helping them tie the environmental issues that we talked about and the science we know a lot about to their art, because they were all very passionate in a different way,” Carly says. “We definitely built that deeper connection of what you’re making and how this can connect to an environmental or marine issue. And a lot of them were able to do it, which I’m very surprised and, honestly, pretty proud about.”
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Amanda Hoffman-Hall, Ph.D., had designed a Winter Term course at Eckerd for three Gulf Scholars to take environmental education into Megan Hoffman’s Advanced Placement Visual Arts class at Clearwater High School. The program is called CREATE—Cultivating Resilience through Environmental Artistic Transdisciplinary Education.
Junior Carly Harshbarger at the front of the class
“Over 45% of youth aged 16–25 experience daily anxiety about the environment,” Hoffman-Hall explains. “Participatory environmental art fosters public engagement in environmental issues while reducing mental health stress and building hope through collective action.”
Hoffman-Hall says Eckerd students, serving as “Gulf Impact Mentors,” collaborated with the high school students to co-develop an environmental art exhibit for the Used Once, Lasts Forever art show to be held on Eckerd’s campus April 16.
The Eckerd students—Carly, Elizabeth Pellegrini and Dai Goebel—each chose their own area of interest to present to their mentees, and the group answered questions and helped facilitate the creation of art made from waste materials.
“I basically talked about ocean acidification, how it’s caused and that it is basically [caused by] excess carbon in the atmosphere. So the ocean pH has been in decline since 1880,” says Elizabeth, a junior marine science student from Baltimore County, Maryland. “I tried to not talk about chemistry a lot because it can make people just shut down. I showed them this great graph [of ocean pH levels] from NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] about how it’s a pretty straight line down since the industrial revolution.”
Dai, a junior marine science and animal studies student from Fargo, North Dakota, had taken 3D Art in high school, so being in a classroom full of budding artists was refreshing.
“It was kind of fun to see their avenues of art, I guess, because they all have a little portfolio going on,” Dai recalls. “Learning about Florida high school was interesting. It’s all outside. You walk to class. I don’t know. It was just cool to be in a different world than what I was in.”
Eckerd’s Gulf Scholars Program promotes place-based education that engages students and faculty from a broad range of academic disciplines to cultivate interdisciplinary knowledge and prepare students to address challenges at the intersections of social, environmental and energy systems to ensure a safer, more resilient, equitable and sustainable Gulf region.
With the assistance of a $3,000 stipend each, Eckerd Gulf Scholars take intensive courses in the spring and fall semesters and wrap up their program with a Reflective Service Learning course in Winter Term—a three-week, one-class term in January.
The program has been transformational for Carly, who joined the Scholars’ first cohort and then took her passion for interdisciplinary education to a semester abroad program in Spain this spring.
“I really wanted to expand what I was learning in the classroom, and, obviously, in my marine science and environmental studies classes, I was learning a lot about this region, but I just wanted to know even more,” she explains. “Besides just meeting with different professors or community members in general, honestly, I grew super close with the other Gulf Scholars. I’m super thankful for that.”
