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Once-in-a-Lifetime Trip to Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Provides Lessons for Nicholas School Students About the Good and Bad Impacts of Human Activities

TEN DAYS spent exploring the natural wonders of one of the world’s most remote marine wildernesses may sound like a trip to paradise.

But for a class of Nicholas School students who traveled this January to Midway Atoll in the rarely visited Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument of northwestern Hawaii, the experience also provided an indelible lesson about the far-reaching impacts— both good and bad—that human activities can have.

Even in places where relatively few humans recently have stepped foot.

“Going to Midway makes you rethink the concept of wilderness. No place is truly an island. It’s all connected and affected by what we, in other places, do,” says class participant Joanna Bounds.

Bounds was one of nine Master of Environmental Management students who got the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study environmental management on Midway and witness firsthand the atoll’s astounding wildlife.

The course was the first educational trip ever permitted within the monument. It focused on the challenges associated with managing and conserving biodiversity in remote wildernesses, using the protected habitats around Midway Atoll as a case study.