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This article demonstrates how a teaching case study approach can benefit museum studies courses. It takes as its focus the widely reported rescue of a boys’ football team from a flooded cave in Thailand (2018). The success of this multinational effort led to immediate calls for the establishment of a “living museum” dedicated to remembering what became known as the “Tham Luang cave rescue.” Discussion of the potential form and function of this envisaged museum plus its wider ramifications formed a key component of a newly validated international MA program taught in the UK and China by local academics and practitioners. Issues addressed include collections management, interpretation and display as well as ethical considerations relating to funding and forward planning. These were debated through groupwork, student presentations and report writing. The article reflects on this experience and the lessons it has for studying museums. It advocates the use of other topical events as the basis for similar teaching case studies on the grounds that this best equips students with the knowledge and skills required in the workplace.

The East Australian Current (EAC) is a highly dynamic western boundary current of the South Pacific Gyre. The EAC frequently encroaches shoreward, drives upwelling, changes coastal bio-physical dynamics, and thus exerts significant impacts on coastal marine ecosystem. This thesis aims to provide a first quantitative and systematic study on the EAC encroachment off southeast Australia. First, a quantitative mapping method of the EAC is developed using remotely sensed Sea Surface Temperature (SST) data and a Topographic Position Index (TPI) based image processing technique. The validation using Bluelink ReANalysis model data suggested good reliability of our mapping results, based on which direct measurement of EAC encroachment is for the first time made possible. A study using EAC maps generated from 6-day composited Himawari-8 SST data has provided new insights into the EAC encroachment. Along the coast of New South Wales (NSW), large-scale and high-frequency EAC intrusion was observed, being every 60-80 days upstream (30-32ºS) and every 90-100 days downstream (33-35ºS), which is associated with the EAC’s intrinsic oscillation and eddy shedding. Downstream, the EAC intrusion exhibits a 20-day longer period and a quasi-double amplitude. Such dephasing is due to abrupt change of regime at the EAC separation point (32-33ºS). Higher-frequency (every 16-32 days) and smaller-magnitude EAC intrusion was observed along the entire NSW coast (28-37ºS), which is associated with EAC’s meanders and frontal eddies. In the Extension Zone (37.30-44ºS), we observed maximum EAC intrusion in summer, which is an expression of a seasonal boundary flow off eastern Tasmania. Further, using 26-year AVHRR SST data, seasonality of the EAC intrusion off north NSW has been quantified and analyzed. The results show that the EAC moves closer to the coast in summer than in winter, which is due to its seasonal shift (upstream of 29º40'S) and seasonal widening (downstream of 29º40'S). These findings provide new understandings of the seasonal upwelling and shelf circulation observed off north NSW. Finally, with HF radar and mooring data, we performed an accurate daily tracking of a rapid EAC intrusion event and monitored its impacts on the shelf water off Coffs Harbor. During the event, the EAC was highly dynamic with considerable daily onshore/offshore movement (~5km/day). Bottom ocean temperature and surface current speed on the shelf varied linearly with the EAC-to-coast distance.

Presentation given at the 20thGHRSST science meeting (XX), ESA/ESRIN, Frascati, Italy, June 3- 7, 2019.