Author: SPU4121

Seattle Pacific University student Emily McElheran speaks to how the natural beauty of Blakely Island is inspiring for her as an artist.

Emily, a Visual Communication and Illustration double major, went to Blakely Island with Dr. Langford’s Creation Care class in the Spring of 2024. While there, she was struck by the beauty of the island.

Sitting on Bald Bluff, looking out over the San Juan Islands, with sketchbook at the ready, Emily noted, “As an artist, I definitely feel like I can like engage with nature differently and I just, I see a lot of the details, I think.”

The breathtaking landscape in front of her was more than just inspiration for Emily, it was a challenge: “I see all these different like lines or all these different patterns and I just immediately think of how I could create that.”

This stunning backdrop helped Emily intersect her faith and her art. She said, “It’s so insane the different like patterns that God can create and the different intricacies that nature has. It’s like a constant puzzle of like how I could get remotely close to recreating that beauty and like capturing that.”

When asked what her artist’s eye was most drawn to on Blakely, she said that the mountains drew her attention the most: “Specifically on Blakely I think I’ve noticed honestly like more of the mountains. In the heart of Seattle, every now and then you can see them if you’re like going across the Aurora bridge or every now and then but like here that’s kind of like any opening you get, that’s all you see.”

Her time at SPU and experienced eye for art helped her to engage with this unique place in a way starkly different than the biology students who frequent the island. Still talking about the mountains, she said, “As far as you can see are all these different mountains and my brain then goes to like honestly to a color analysis of them. And then I’m like, how could I paint that? And I think of, ‘oh there’s a little bit of orange in here mixed in with that blue or there’s some yellow over there.’”

Emily sat looking out from the Bluff and commenting on it for only a moment before she put pen to paper and started sketching all that she saw.

Ecotheology: crossed between faith and science.

Gethsemane was the garden Jesus prayed in. Symbolically, it reminds Christians of another garden, where sin entered the world. From Eden to Gethsemane, nature is a reflection and redemption of faith. 

Spring quarter of 2024, Dr. Mike Langford’s Creation Care course ventured to Blakely Island for a weekend trip as part of their official course schedule. The Undergraduate Catalog describes the course as “[investigating] the ecological implications of Christian faith.”

Along with Dr. Langford and his students, Dr. Eric Long, a professor of biology at Seattle Pacific University, also went on the weekend trip to Blakely. He took the class around the island, sharing biological facts and encouraging students to look closely at their surroundings.

While the biology courses that Dr. Long takes to Blakely have an emphasis of “let’s make sure we memorize the names of all these different things,” the Creation Care class has a different aim. Dr. Long says, “The major motivation for this class is to just open our eyes to the diversity of the different things that are out there.”

The class took a trip to the tidepools on the Northeast corner of the island, “the best spot on the island for tide pools,” according to Dr. Long, where students were able to investigate the different organisms living in these pools. With a striking view of Mt. Baker in the background, students passed around a bright purple starfish that Dr. Long plucked up out of the water.

Hiking up to Bald Bluff at ecologist speed, the class stopped frequently for Dr. Long to point out the different things happening ecologically in the forest. While standing slightly off the trail, the students all circled around him, Dr. Long said, “Sorry if I’m overly dramatic—what you’re standing on right now is a carpet of death. Soil. This is dead stuff that’s getting turned into new life.” He went on to explain how the organisms in the soil help cycle the nutrients from dead plants and animals back into the trees. “That’s all part of the ecosystem.”

Dr. Langford commented on the ecological importance of death from a theological stance. He says, “When we look at the rest of God’s creation, outside of ourselves, we see that actually most of creation is okay with death; it’s part of life; it’s something that happens. We actually need death to make way for new life.” He explains that “Christians believe…that death is not the last word; that there is something on the other side. And actually, if you look at creation, that’s true as well.”

Discussions like this, bridging ecology and theology, were numerous throughout the weekend. With scheduled times of exploring the island and ample free time, students were able to experience nature without the sound of the interstate throbbing in the background.

An afternoon rain shower shed doubt on the initial plans for students to hike to Blakely Peak, the highest point on the island. The class took the vans up to the peak instead, and the clouds broke just in time for them to stand in awe of a magnificent, mist-hazed sunset.

When asked what he hopes his students were taking away from their time on Blakely, Dr. Langford echoed the themes that he has emphasized in lectures throughout the quarter: “You can’t love something that you don’t know. And you don’t know something that you don’t experience…I’m hoping that by coming out here we can experience a little bit of God’s creation that maybe we haven’t before.”

He went on to say, “Hopefully, by experiencing that a little bit, we’ll get to know the vastness of God’s creation a little bit better, at least from a certain vantage point. And hopefully, by getting to know it better, we can love it better. And we want to love it better because we want to love the things that God loves, and God wanted us to love all of creation.”

II.

Back on campus, ecotheology enters a wider territory. It finds itself wedged between two seemingly different disciplines. To its left is a copy of the Bible and to its right is a McGraw Hill 10th edition of Ecology Concepts and Applications. But at Blakely, browsing the bookshelves inside the dining hall or upstairs in the dormitory’s common room, botany beside beatitudes. 

As a Christian university with many STEM opportunities, science is a faith conversation. The Christian biologist and the eco-theologian must ask questions that demand intersectionality and challenge faith. 

Dr. Rodney Stiling is a retired Associate History Professor at SPU whose specialty focused on the history of science. Stiling has only been once to Blakely, but it was to answer the faith and science question for the honors program. 

“I’ve been there one time. Interestingly, it was for the purpose of gathering with students and faculty of the honors program all involved with the faith and science curriculum, and we had a retreat out there. We talked about what kinds of things should we have in the courses and what things are superfluous,” Stiling said. 

Stiling used to teach an honors class with physics professor Dr. Wade Grabow, covering the history of science, religion and cosmology.  

Theological questions of eschatology and apologetics are age-old questions, but the world they respond to is always different. Historical case studies reveal that the tension between the observable world and scripture never finds relief. 

“There’s a famous one about Copernicus. He was a devout Catholic, and yet he postulated based on very good information that the earth was in motion around the Sun and not the other way around. And the Bible seems to assume and speak in a very geocentric manner. The Bible speaks of the Sun moving around the Earth. So what are we going to do with that?” Stiling said. 

Well, we live with it. Our best theories about the sun and space become true once proven.  Satellites and space crafts give our naked eyes access to the world as is, and as Christians, we reconcile the past with the present. 

“I’ve never heard of even one case of a person, a Christian believer today, losing their faith, because it turned out that the Earth goes around the sun and not the other way around,” Stiling said. “A well-informed person of faith acknowledges that the world is, is created, and that our place in the world is as creatures that we are also created.”

But when today’s science gives us gene splicing, particle colliders, mRNA vaccines, and ice core carbon dating, discernment calls Christians to the pulpit and the laboratory once again. Sometimes, it calls us back to the classroom. 

Dr. Lisa Goodhew is an assistant professor of physics at SPU. While she has yet to teach a class at Blakely, Goodhew was once a student who visited the island. 

“I was a student at SPU and I went to Blakely as part of an alternative and sustainable engineering class, one of my favorite classes of my physics major. We got to build our own wind turbine and go to Blakely to learn more about hydroelectric power because that’s how they power a lot of the stuff on Blakely,” Goodhew said. 

From assignments and lectures, the principal moves to practice, giving students a sense of tangibility in their work. But there are other principles to test in life, principles of faith

“Another thing that was really big for me when I was in college as a physics major was this understanding that all truth ultimately comes from God from a Christian perspective,” Goodhew said. 

This notion of truth informs Christian spirituality. That the spirit is embodied in the real world of being created human. And as we understand the world, it is getting worse. 

Goodhew teaches an upper-division physics class titled “Global Climate Change: Scientific, Social and Moral Implications.” Throughout the class, the physical causes of global warming are taught, but its knowledge is equipped and calls students to moral action. 

“Christians have a big role to play in science because we have this history and a whole set of resources for making world decisions and developing virtue,” Goodhew said. “That comes into the climate change part of it especially because a lot of what we see with climate change data… is there are going to be hard choices we make now that may require some personal or systematic sacrifice that is going to ultimately lead to better things.”

And Christians can either look forward to revelation or backward to the garden for an ideal vision. Stiling sees ecotheology as God’s command to humanity. 

“No matter how you take the Genesis account, even if you take it as completely figurative, the lesson is very clear… The lesson is [that] humans are expected to serve in the role as stewards of the earth to keep and to tend the garden, to protect [it], and to live well,” Stiling said. “For agriculture, forestry, and animal husbandry, how should our attitudes be? Is it okay to do mining? Yes, it probably is if we clean up afterward and have those discussions. And then I would hope that a person of science if they are not also a person of faith, would approach their work as the investigation and exploration of God’s handiwork.”

Blakely is not self-contained. It is part of a global system: the ocean, the air, and the biosphere. To leave our homes and retreat to the island is not an escape; it’s a calling. As students leave the island, they sail back to their communities.

“Climate change, and the evidence we have that it’s caused by humans, provides us a new opportunity and a new calling to show love in a different way. This is on a global scale that really requires cooperation, and that’s something Christians can do,” Goodhew said. 

A short audio story on what brought Eric Long, PhD, professor of biology at Seattle Pacific University, to Blakely Island.

Blakely Island is primarily used by Seattle Pacific University (SPU) for science majors but seldom mentioned is the area’s history of holding courses for non-science majors as well.

Continue reading “Blakely Island’s use for nonscience majors”

If it hadn’t been for donating 1,000 acres of Blakely Island wilderness in 1976, the reality of having a field station and laboratory in the San Juan Islands for Seattle Pacific University students may have never come to fruition.

The process of attaining the land on Blakely Island occurred after Thomas B. Crowley Sr., the head of the shipping conglomerate Crowley Maritime Corporation, bought 4,400 acres of land on Blakely. The land purchased by Crowley Sr. is situated on the upper part of the island, which was previously owned by a logging company. This specific parcel of land included Blakely Peak and the land surrounding Spencer Lake.

For Crowley, it was especially important to purchase land on Blakely, as talk had circulated that heavy condominium development would occur on the land. The Crowley family also had preexisting ties to the island, as they owned a summer home on Blakely.

In purchasing the land on Blakely, Crowley Sr. wanted to gift 1,000 acres of the land for conservation easement. Originally, he approached the Nature Conservancy and the University of Washington about donating the property, but both organizations were not able to process the donation fast enough. However, SPU was able to handle Crowley Sr.’s donation within the designated time frame.

In donating the land to the university, Crowley Sr. also agreed to construct the island’s field station. Construction took place from 1979–1983, according to Thomas B. Crowley Jr., Crowley Sr.’s son and current CEO of Crowley Maritime Corporation.

The field station itself was finished in February 1984 and dedicated on May 5, 1984. In addition, an endowment was established by the Crowley family and a group of other donors in order to pay for field station operations.

“The new Crowley Laboratory is dedicated to the preservation of Blakely Island’s beauty and the environmental education of students,” said SPU Vice President Joe Constance at the time of the dedication.

A November 1984 copy of Response magazine also follows the arrival of Dr. Ross Shaw, the first director for the new field station. Shaw was directly involved in creating academic programs for the island, planning for increased student programming on Blakely in summer and completing his own research on Blakely Island’s lake, forest, and marsh ecosystems.

In fact, SPU’s 1984–1985 class catalog was the first time specific summer classes at Blakely Island were listed.

“We wanted to create a place where students could have a place to learn,” said Crowley Jr.

Interested in what biodiversity exists on Blakely Island? Check out some ecology students’ favorite plants they hope to one day add to their herbariums.

When Tim Nelson, arrived on Blakely Island for the first time in the fall of 1984, he was hooked.

As a freshman in an ecology class at Seattle Pacific University, experiencing Blakely’s virtually untouched lakes, forests and ocean beaches confirmed his interest in learning outdoors.

“It was a great way to learn biology as a student,” says Nelson. “Knowing that we were doing real science, actually learning ecology and not just having fun in the woods, is what made it so appealing.”

34 years later, Nelson is a professor of biology at SPU and director of the same Blakely Island Field Station that he visited as a bright-eyed undergraduate. Ever since Nelson first set foot on the island, he has found new opportunities throughout his career to revisit its serene land and seascape.

As an undergraduate, Nelson always knew he wanted to major in biology but debated between medical school and graduate school. His choice became easier when he began working in a clinical microbiology research lab at Harborview Hospital while simultaneously diving for his scuba certification in the summer of 1985.

“I remember I was sitting in the lab streaking plates while looking out the window to the sweeping view of Elliot Bay,” Nelson recalls, laughing. “I looked down at the plate and out the window again and thought, ‘I want to be out there, not in here!”

Nelson relieved this itch to be outdoors by taking classes that went to Blakely Island during the weekend.

When summer came, Nelson did not want to stop learning from what Blakely had to offer. He found a job doing menial chores on the island during the summer between his second and third years at SPU.

After each day of splitting shakes, filling pot holes and washing dishes concluded, Nelson rushed to the marina to get a boat and dive before sunset darkened the deep waters of the Rosario Strait.

“There’s really something about being out on a boat on a sunny day and hopping in the water,” Nelson explains while remembering his first summer on Blakely. “It was really stark, amazing beauty.”

While in graduate school at University of Washington, Nelson assumed his time at Blakely was finished. However, within five years into his graduate education, SPU needed a marine botanist to teach some of the classes that Nelson took as an undergraduate. This just happened to be his field of expertise.

“I definitely made sure to teach classes that had field trips to Blakely!” Nelson laughs.

By 1995, SPU offered Nelson a tenured track as a biology professor. His interest in marine botany expanded as he began to receive research grants from The Murdoch Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Washington State Department of Ecology.

His grant research focused mainly on blooms of green seaweeds that are found in the oceanic tides around Blakely. With his passion for diving, Nelson spent time conducting studies in saltwater environments that other marine botanists typically avoid, such as the glacial San Juan waters in the dead of winter.

However, Nelson believes that science should not pause simply because of an uncomfortable setting for study.

“In ecology, things change,” Nelson explains. “Climates are changing. Fires happen. Earthquakes happen. It matters what patterns are consistent and what holds up over time.”

Nelson’s passion for ecology put him forward as the ideal candidate for Director of SPU’s Blakely Island Field Station in 2003. He enjoys teaching some of the same classes on Blakely that initially opened his eyes to the beauty of marine botany as an undergraduate.

Almost 15 years later, Nelson is still struck by the unmatched splendor and diversity found on Blakely, from the life in the oceanic tides to the vegetation of the deep woods.

He answered without hesitation when asked which experience stands most apparent in his memory over his years at Blakely.

“It’s more of the whole experience where you get that perfect dive,” Nelson says as he leans back in his chair. “You’re coming back at sunset and the orcas have decided to come into Rosario Strait. It’s quite an experience.”

By Tori Hoffman

As an integrated studies major pursuing an Elementary Teacher Certification, sophomore Emma Walton is passionate about learning. Not only is she committed to being a lifelong learner, but she also wants to foster and grow lifelong learners in the students she will come to teach.

With a long line of teachers in her family, Walton loved the idea of being a teacher from a young age. As a child, she would even pretend to play teacher and grade tests. Math and natural sciences had never come easy for her, so she always imagined she would teach social sciences or language arts.

“No one ever told me that I couldn’t do science, but I just always felt that way. I never liked science, I never thought I was good at science. I loved sociology, psychology and history,” Walton said. “So I was so nervous to even be doing a college-level science course.”

When Walton started at SPU, she felt comfortable choosing the social sciences track, one of the six common areas of study that students in the integrated studies major choose as a concentration. There is, however, a set of common courses that all IS majors are required to take, regardless of concentration. These courses include BIO 2571: Introduction to Biology — better known to IS majors as “teacher bio.”

Walton took “teacher bio” in the spring of 2017 and everything about it exceeded her expectations. Not only did she find Assistant Professor of Biology Elena Brezynski to present the material in a very engaging, approachable way, but she also took her first trip to SPU’s 967-acre field station on Blakely Island, Washington.

The weekend trip was intended to apply knowledge from the classroom, and Walton had a blast. She expected to hate the course and struggle through it the whole time. After all, it was supposed to be her one and only college-level science class.

“I ended up learning so much from Dr. Brezynski and I found out that the material was so interesting to me and I was fascinated by it,” Walton said. “It was amazing, and I loved it, and Blakely really sealed that over.”

For Walton, “teacher bio” exposed her to processes that re-instilled her love of learning, a quality she finds very important in a teacher. Though she felt in her comfort zone in her other classes, Walton says she was engaged in this course, learning new things — including how to learn again.

“Even if I don’t teach science, the skills that you learn in a science classroom are applicable to all ages and all subjects,” Walton said. “Just observing, following a process, running an experiment, you can use that in everything.”

Not only did she love the academic side of the field experience on Blakely, but she also got to swim in the lake, kayak and hike while making wonderful memories with friends.

“Being able go out on that beautiful island and to act like a kid, digging in the mud, identifying things, it was honestly life changing,” Walton said. “So after that, I switched my concentration to natural sciences and this year, I started taking more science classes.”

Walton went to Blakely for a second time in spring 2018 with her BIO 2103: General Biology course, taught by Professor of Biology Eric Long. She said it was just as magical as the first time, and has now made it her goal to take all the courses that go to Blakely so she can go as many times as possible before she graduates.

Her favorite part of Blakely trips is the hike to Blakely Peak, where she can apply her knowledge of plant life and also take time out of her busy schedule to pause and embrace everything around her. She calls it “refreshing and relaxing.”

Walton hopes to instill the same passion that she has seen in the biology faculty at SPU in her students and to teach them how to be good people and citizens with good values, beyond just being a good student.

“The world is so amazing and there is so much to learn and I just want students to know that,” Walton said.