From December 2016 to March 2017, nine students from eight countries joined education faculty member Bonnie Tai in Taiwan. For the first three weeks, Suzanne Morse, botany faculty member, was with the class, called Human Ecology Abroad in Taiwan, or HEAT. Students studied Mandarin, explored local food systems, participated in several forms of intercultural education, including a primary school of the indigenous Rukai community, wrote travel essays and epistolary poetry, and interviewed residents about the Japanese occupation, among other independent studies.