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Special Topics courses provide opportunities for students to learn in hybrid form with online lectures and field courses. Tropical Aquaculture is  offered in Ilocos Notre, Philippines in partnership with Mariano Marcos State University.

Tropical Aquaculture initially introduces students to Filipino students and aquaculture concepts through a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) opportunity, preparing them for in-person learning once they land in country.

Lia Woolaver, a fourth-year Animal Science student at the Faculty of Agriculture, has a keen interest in Aquaculture and was able to travel abroad with the rest of her class as part of the Tropical Aquaculture course held in the Philippines this past April for two weeks.

A native of Nova Scotia, Lia is studying aquaculture as a minor and believes it’s going to be very prominent in the world in the coming years.

“I think it’s about feeding the populations of the future,” said Lia.  “I’ve heard a lot of countries that are smaller than Canada, use different methods to grow fish in more space-efficient ways, and working with the resources available to them. This is something I was very interested in because you only see one side of aquaculture here,” she added.  “I thought it would really be a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see what fish farms look like in the Philippines.”

Once In the Philippines, students participate in hands-on learning experiences and immerse themselves in cultural traditions to demonstrate how important aquaculture and fisheries are to local Filipino communities.

Lia was fortunate to learn from many hands-on experiences including net making, netting fish and filleting the fish that were caught.

“It was a very friendly environment, and people were very committed to giving us a good experience. I don’t want to say we learned more that way, but I do think it stuck with me more, the way hands-on learning can stick with you more,” said Lia.

Students also visited local neighborhoods and homes and gained an understanding of their daily lives.

“Taking in as much of the culture as you can, and talking to the locals, I think that’s really an important part of the experience. That emersion was very interesting,” she added.

Lia was particularly interested in sustainability and waste management.

“I saw a lot of efficient space use in the Philippines that I think we could learn from in Canada,” said Lia. “It definitely gave me a less Canada-centric perspective for aquaculture and gave me a lot of new things I want to look into.”