Wednesday morning, all the ISS students rose early to get on buses and make the 2-hour drive to The Eden Project. The Eden Project is an interesting site which combines ideas of sustainability and the importance of showing people the Earth’s biodiversity first-hand with the hope that education will spur positive action. The Eden site is made up of shops, restaurants, an outdoor amphitheater, beautiful outdoor gardens, two enormous Epcot-esque greenhouses (biomes), and The Core, an educational and exhibition building. The appearance of Eden is unlike anything I have ever seen. The dome-shaped biomes are a stark contrast to the green, natural surroundings and the sculpted gardens are astounding. It seems like a sort of plant-wonderland with lots of interactive activities for kids and families. We first entered the large amphitheater and took part in a participatory art display by making and pinning blue paper  butterflies onto a towering net filled with hundreds of other blue butterflies.

Our next stop was the Mediterranean Biome with plant life from Mediterranean climates across the world: olive trees from Greece, grapes from Italy, and aloes from South Africa were just some of the many plants within the huge dome. We then walked to the Rainforest Biome, the larger of the two, which features a 300+ feet high suspended platform that allows visitors to see the forest from a birds-eye vantage point. Hundreds of different plants filled the biome, many of which I recognized from my tropical climate back home. Full grown trees and waterfalls gave you the sense of entering an actual rainforest (so did the 100% humidity and 85F temperatures!). Before heading to the Core and gardens, we stopped for lunch in the family-style dining area which includes open kitchens and farmhouse tables. The food, some of which is grown on site, was amazing!

Once we finished our satisfying lunch, we walked to the Core which contains educational and artistic displays of the necessity of taking care of the natural world and reducing our impact. A huge trash monster outside of the Core is made of the amount of electronic waste the average human will create during their lifetime– a pretty startling graphic when piled together all at once. Inside the Core, is a large sculptural work called The Seed which was carved from a single piece of Cornish granite and resembles a pine cone. The Fibonacci sequence was used to generate the perfect circular patterns across its surface. The Seed represents life, both human, plant, and animal, and when the exhibition was opened the Queen placed a secret message beneath the behemoth sculpture to remain their as long as The Seed stands.

Before leaving the Eden Project, we wandered through some of the gardens, which recently received the prestigious Chelsea Award. They are certainly deserving of recognition and contain an array of beautiful flowering plants, trees and bushes. One of my favorite areas was the multi-color wild flower gardens. There really is something special about walking through a beautiful garden and just enjoying nature– that connection is something the creators of Eden hope to spread and protect for years to come.

After leaving Eden, my pathway traveled to the Tremough Campus in Falmouth-Cornwall for a one-nights stay before lectures the next morning. That night, the group of us took a bus into town and explored the beachside (and a seaside restaurant’s hot chocolate options). The next morning we discussed how natural environments can affect health and the science of epidemiology with Dr. Ben Wheeler and Dr. Nick Osborne. After our experience at Eden and the Falmouth coast, it was easy to discuss how different natural environments can de-stress and increase feelings of well-being. Exploring the physiological affects of these sensations and their ability to mediate other measures of disparity in society was of interest to all of us. Dr. Osborne was able to show us how those different studies could be done through epidemiology and the different hierarchy of study types.

That afternoon, we piled back onto buses to head back to Exeter for Karaoke Night. Karaoke is always entertaining and this night was no exception with many stellar performances in several languages! It was definitely a great opportunity to spend time with the ISS Class of 2013 and create fun memories for years to come.