Rose Aschebrock grew up in Auckland, New Zealand around dormant volcanoes, but never expected she would have the opportunity to create jewelry from lava at Syracuse University.

“It’s a really amazing experience,” said Aschebrock, a senior magazine journalism and writing and rhetorical studies double major. “I’ve always loved jewelry and now I’m learning how to make it.”

Aschebrock is one student currently enrolled in the HNR 340: “Art and Science of Lava,” an honors course that provides a cross disciplinary environment for students to understand the artistic and scientific aspects of lava though discussions, lectures and live lava pours. Presentations for the students’ final projects begin Tuesday.

Co-instructed by professors Jeffery Karson of the earth sciences department and Robert Wysocki of the art department, the course, which was offered for the first time this semester, covers the scientific basics of lava, including its behavior and occurrence in the natural world. Students also learn how lava and volcanic eruptions have influenced architecture and art in places such as Hawaii and Iceland, where volcanic activity is a part of daily life.

Stemming from the Syracuse University Lava Project, a collaboration founded by Karson and Wysocki, the class allows students to participate in live lava pours. These pours are held as a part of the project’s goal to provide SU and the surrounding area with the opportunity to engage with lava through artistic creation, education and scientific experiment.

In order to have up to 800 pounds of molten rock for students to work with at lava pour demonstrations, volcanic rock from Wisconsin which is roughly one billion years old is re-melted and poured at the Comstock Art Facility. SU is the only place in the world where lava experiments are being conducted of this scale, said Karson, a geologist who has studied volcanoes both on land and the seafloor.

Karson said the class combines art and science and challenges students to not just think like a scientist or solely like an artist, but to appreciate the two different perspectives and try to integrate them somehow in their own creations.

“It’s been fascinating seeing the way that students have found so many different, diverse ways to think about lava and somehow make it intersect their own educational background and career goals,” Karson said.

At the lava pours, students have created a wide range of art projects and performed scientific experiments. The projects have included baking a cake, making jewelry and roasting coffee over the lava flow.

Karson also said the students have conducted scientific projects including examining the thermal effects of lava flowing over other rock material, observing the magnetic properties of lava and studying how crystals grow in lava to create rock.

The lava demonstrations have attracted community members, students and volcanologists from other institutions to experience and engage with lava firsthand, as there are not any sources of natural lava in New York.

“We are basically bringing the volcano to central New York,” Karson said.

Participants and students who have attended the pours have also created short videos, both creative and documentary, molded a ceremonial dagger and used specialized cameras to generate thermal images of the lava.

Becky Waghorne, a senior international relations and women’s and gender studies double major, said she never expected there would be a course offered about lava, but that the class allowed her to learn about lava as more than just a concept she read about in books or saw in movies.

“This is not only a science class — it’s interdisciplinary,” Waghorne said. “This is definitely what honors is about, this is what Syracuse is about, is encouraging these connections and I think it was a really important class for me to have that gave me a different perspective than any of my other classes.”

Published on December 2, 2014 at 12:01 am

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