June 15th - Day 15

Jared Godfrey

 Today we visited both James cook university as well as the Cairns Taipan professional basketball facilities for two different sets of the lectures, and even had some fun along the way. 

The first lectures at JCU concerned the culture, health and wellbeing of the indigenous peoples here in northern Australia and surrounding pacific islands.  While personally for me this was not the most interesting lecture, it was definitely one of the most informative and eye opening presentations of the entire trip. Not only was I shocked to know that there are native communities in Australia that are nearly impossible to reach due to intense and dangerous travel conditions and vast distances. It was also news to me that the United States in fact does not fall into the top seven of the world's most obese countries. Afterwards, we even got to look at some of the native marine species to prepare us for the trip to the Great Barrier Reef. 

The second set of lectures took place at the Cairns Taipans professional basketball training facility. I personally found this to be the most interesting lecture because it centered on sports sales and marketing, an area I wish to pursue one day. The more exciting portion of the session was when the group was allowed to shoot around and play pick up basketball on the Taipans floor and with a former National Basketball League professional. 

With exhaustion setting in on the 15th day of our adventure, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to remain engaged for days length of time. But for me, this day proved to be one of the most involved and interesting. 


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