The Rome and the Sea program will immerse students in a interdisciplinary, hands-on learning environment at the intersection of human and environmental studies. One hundred meters from our classrooms at the Rome Center, on February 17, 1600 Giordano Bruno was burned alive because his scientific views were deemed dangerous. Four hundred years later, climate scientists defend themselves from personal, political and legal threats that aim to assassinate their character if not their being. Scientific, literary, visual, and cultural traditions have a great deal to teach us about managing the future of our planet’s ocean resources. Rome and the Sea: Exploring Environmental Management Through Science And Culture will give students the opportunity to investigate and learn about the relationship between science and culture through an immersion in both at the foundation of western culture in the Mediterranean. The Rome and the Sea Program is an interdisciplinary approach to marine environmental management that will both humanize environmental problems and explore technical solutions that can find strength in the social values and attitudes that are expressed in literary, visual, and cultural values from the past and the present.
The Rome and the Sea program draws energy and inspiration from its locale, in Italy, the European Union, and the Mediterranean. It will allow students, whether their background is humanities or science, to understand questions of global significance affecting the use and governance of the essential natural resources of the sea.