What’s better than studying abroad once? Getting inspired by your travels and studying abroad twice!
Last summer, Kent State Zoology student Carter Henry participated in the Study Abroad Trip to the Galapagos, Ecuador program, and now he has just returned from his second education abroad program, Down Under: Ecology and Evolution in Australia.
We sat down with Carter to learn more about his experience in Australia:
What made you choose the Down Under: Ecology and Evolution in Australia program?
I feel like for continents Australia is probably the best one from a perspective of looking at animals that you will only see there. It's the only place on the planet that has the three types of mammals, which are marsupials (which are the pouch ones) and regular mammals like we have here (which are called placental mammals), and then they also have the egg laying mammals. From a perspective of biodiversity that's the place that has the most unique animals.
What was your favorite animal that you saw in Australia?
The platypus, for sure. They’re only native to Australia and they're pretty elusive in the wild. Even in captivity, they're not really outside of Australia either. The only one that I know of that's even in the States is in the San Diego Zoo. So to even see one in the captivity, you would have to go to Australia or go to California.
You said they are pretty elusive. How were you able to see the platypus?
They're in slow moving streams, creeks, and ponds. In Cairns our tour guides were very invested in getting us to see the animals we wanted to see, so they really tried to get us to see the platypus. They took us to areas where they knew they might be, and then we got there and there were locals who said there's a platypus out. We got there and we ended up seeing three of them in three different spots.
What was the class like? How often did you meet and what kinds of activities did you do?
There wasn't that bad of a workload. There were mostly preliminary assignments of learning about the flora and the fauna and the biogeography of Australia (like how the continents split apart and why Australia is the way it is, why the specific animals are there and why there's so much unique stuff there).
Then kind of throughout the trip it was just experiencing Australia itself. We had an app on our phone where we were supposed to take pictures of animals, plants or fungi throughout the trip, and then you could upload it to the software and it identifies it. So everything that you take a picture of in Australia would get uploaded there and then as long as you made like 15 or 20 or so uploads, they were counted as a grade to make sure that you were doing your job and observing.
What was it like traveling with other Kent State students and your faculty?
It's always nice to travel with people that are super interested in similar types of stuff. If I went out with a group of friends that don't necessarily have the same major as me and I'm stopping every five minutes to look at animals and stuff, they're not necessarily okay with that. But for this trip, that's kind of the point. At some point we're going out specifically to look for animals, so it's nice to be with people that understand it and empathize with it.
You went on a nighttime bush walk as part of the program. What was that like?
We had a super local naturalist who has been doing it for a long time. But we visited Cairns after very recently they had been hit with a cyclone, so the landscape had been affected drastically and the naturalist even made a comment where during the night bush walk, he said that usually when you look up into the canopy, you can't see the night sky at all. And when we were there, when he looked up, he could see like the stars and stuff, and he commented on how weird that was.
So because of that cyclone, that kind of affected how many animals we would have seen.
But it was still crazy. Like every five seconds you would see a giant spider and stuff. We all had our own personal flashlights, and there was no path there was no path to walk on, you're just walking in the bush, but he was leading the way.
You all did several hikes and nature walks. Were there any others that stuck out to you?
Well, Sydney is a city, so you're not necessarily expected to find animals there, but we did go to a park with the express purpose of finding a possum, which is different from the North American variety, which is an opossum. They look super different, and we were just walking around and shining our flashlights into trees looking for this possum. And we walked almost the entire park and didn't find one. And then we were about to leave, and I shined my flashlight in the tree. And we finally found one and we were very happy to see one.
What was your favorite thing overall that you did?
I don't want to pick favorites, but one of the coolest things we did is on one of our free days in Cairns, me and three others, we went to this place called Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures where we saw this expansive place full of saltwater crocodiles, which is the largest crocodile on the planet.
But they raise them from when they're young and they have a little show with them, and we went around in a little pontoon boat and watched them get fed and stuff.
But it was really cool to see. They're giant, they're like 18 feet long.
Did you try any new foods or dishes?
We stopped in a little town called Katoomba, and when we first got there, our tour guides told us that we should run to the pie shop. Pies are very popular in Australia. We ate a lot of pies, like meat pies not fruit pies, there.
But they told us to run to this local pie shop and they told us since it was early in the afternoon, they might still have kangaroo pie. So me and a couple others, we went down there and they had like two kangaroo pies left. And then they said we have another tray, and we just have to heat them up. So a lot of us tried kangaroo pie.
How was kangaroo pie?
It honestly was pretty underwhelming. It just tastes kind of like beef stew, it wasn't anything that crazy. I know a couple others, while we were getting the kangaroo pies, they went over to a different restaurant and got kangaroo burger and you probably have different texture and different taste more present.
I just wanted to say I tried kangaroo honestly.
What is your top food recommendation for future students studying abroad in Australia?
Because it's so close to Asian countries, there was a really good selection of Asian food. So I had really good ramen. Really traditional style ramen. So really any Asian food there is pretty good.
How do you think this experience has impacted you personally?
I think it's just more fuel for me to study abroad.
I just think it's inevitable that everyone should travel and see what's out there. From whatever perspective, whatever major, there's definitely aspects of studying abroad that are worth checking out, and especially for my major, especially in places like Africa, Asia, South America, and Australia.
And even domestically, there's places that if I can't study abroad, there's definitely places domestically that I'd like to go travel and see the wildlife because it's even drastically different domestically.
