Guided by the Taiwan Loo Koo Yu Association and HiiNStudio, a cross-discipline team from Chang Jung Christian University, local elementary school teachers, students and tourists, used waste collected in the process of beach cleaning to create a sea waste installation wall art work titled "Turtle Roads on a Wall."
In 2019, eight international students went to the sea turtle spawning beach in Liuqiu during their summer vacation to safeguard the sea turtles, remove beach waste and used it to create installation art, with their efforts at protecting marine ecology widely praised by the public. This summer, a cross-departmental team made up of international students from the Sustainability International Program, students from the Department of Mass Communication and Department of Green Energy and Environmental Resources went to the sea turtle habitat in Liuqiu to clean the beach, create marine waste installation art and conduct turtle ecology research.
"Turtle Roads on a Wall" uses marine plastic waste including 2,484 floats, 560 bottle caps, 3 plastic flip flops, 1 pair of fins, 1 diving mask, 1 buoy and 157 pieces of glass to create a wall painting with the motif being marine environment friendly and the hope that turtles and humanity can coexist in harmony.
The art wall contains images of turtles, dolphin fish, friendly underwater turtle admiring and the blue ocean, showcasing the local characteristics of Liuqiu. The wall-mounted mobile website QR code records the process of transforming marine waste into installation art. The art is located on an island road in Liuqiu, directly opposite Sanhua Temple and Wanshantang, that is part of the around the island tour and has become a new check-in attraction for tourists visiting Liuqiu.
In 2022, the cross-discipline team of Chang Jung Christian University will go to sea turtle spawning beaches in Liuqiu, such as Zhongao, Yuchengwei and Lobster Cave, to remove marine waste, record the type and weight of such waste, and upload the data to the International Marine Waste website. They will also conduct surveys of female turtles laying eggs on the shore with local patrol agents at night, while collecting sea turtle ecological and environmental data and identifying marine waste spots and sea turtle habitats via drones and underwater surveys. By analyzing these environmental and biological parameters and establishing a mobile website QR code next to the marine waste wall installation art work the aim is to facilitate marine environmental education.
