A new BYU club, known as the Revive Service Club, aims to improve world conditions by offering humanitarian relief abroad while providing valuable experiences for its student members.

The club has close ties with three organizations: (1) Virtual Business Builders, (2) Revive Service Tours and (3) Revive Humanity. All three have joined resources in what they call “The Trifecta.”

All three organizations in the Trifecta offer internships and travel opportunities. Through the Revive Service Club, students can get involved in meaningful service and have access to the resources and network of the Trifecta.

Erin Merkley, president of the Revive Service Club, said it was formed primarily to give students service opportunities.

“The main thing we want to do is … help students be aware of the service opportunities available,” Merkley said. “Some students can’t go on a full internship, but they may be able to go on one Revive Service tour and get experience.”

Another purpose of the club is to create a valuable network of nonprofit organizations that can work together on humanitarian projects.

“As part of activities we will help network other nonprofits and get involved in the projects,” Merkley said. “(We) network to bring organizations together to stamp out poverty.”

Ryan Ogden, executive director of Revive Service Tours, said the intention of Revive Service Tours is to provide long-term stability in needy countries.

“We focus on leading the way to improvement by increasing stability in every country we go to,” Ogden said. “A country that is stable has poverty under control … so poverty is something we can help with for sure.”

Ogden has traveled abroad on many service projects; his most recent was a service tour to the Philippines. He said his experiences abroad have changed his life and that traveling to do service is more meaningful than tourism.

“Being able to see the world and helping people while doing it is an amazing combination,” Ogden said. “This experience has changed my life, and I want to share that with other people. … It’s a real game changer.”

The BYU Revive Service Club is one way Ogden hopes to share his experiences and opportunities. Ogden said the club, as well as the Trifecta, can help BYU students “Go Forth to Serve.”

“Our motto goes very well with BYU’s motto: (Enter to Learn) — Go Forth to Serve,” Ogden said. “The BYU community has a lot of service-oriented people … connections are one of the biggest things we have to offer and … the opportunity to do meaningful service.”

Amber Savage, head of the Revive Humanity part of the Global Trifecta, said in an email that doing work for communities abroad is both inspiring and self-fulfilling.

“I love what I am doing,” Savage said. “I continue to be amazed and awestruck at the miracles that are happening at every turn. We have met some of the most incredible people and made unbelievable contacts. This is certainly an inspired work.”

BYU’s Museum of Peoples and Cultures held its annual block party, focusing the event on technology through time on Saturday, May 10, outside the museum.

Free booths lined the street reviewing different parts of past culture. Some focused on hunting and fishing, while others taught about clothing and food.

Adults in traditional clothing and children with beaded shoes stood near the booths while visitors ground maize, shaved rocks and crocheted lace. Animal skins hung next to a traditional tepee as guests listened to volunteers talk about past culture.

One of the larger demonstrations showed a traditional dance.

A man danced symbolically as a flower and bird. The visitors cheered as he moved green hoops around and over his body into different shapes. Accompanying him was a man called Morning Star who sang and pounded on a drum. His message was clear:

“We are all related. Find your gift and strengthen our circle,” Morning Star said.

After his speech, Morning Star had everyone come together in a simple dance called the “circle of friendship.” The circle was largely made up of students and families joining hands, each with a different heritage.

Between the larger demonstrations guests were welcome to experience the different parts of culture and eat refreshments.

The first booth described the homes created by the Fremont Indians. They dug into flat ground and used sticks and adobe to build their homes. They built a fire right in the center underneath the stick roofs and next to the logs supporting the sides.

One of the volunteers, Trevor Pollmann, explained how the adobe was similar to the material “used in the Provo Tabernacle.”

The Provo Tabernacle is not the same as the one standing today.  Its original construction began in 1856 and was supposed to remind the youth of their parents’ religious heritage.

The new tabernacle was completed in 1885 while the original was used for recreation as well as meetings. Around 50 years after it was built, the original tabernacle was pulled down.

The Fremont Indians used similar adobe to create their homes; however, when they moved, they would fill their old homes with kindling and burn them down. It is unknown why they would choose to burn down their homes.

Another booth on the block showed intricate lace woven with small needle-like pointers. The women demonstrating would overlap the needles to create an intricate pattern. Examples of woven lace made by the women were placed under glass next to their work area.

After visiting all of the different booths, guest entered the building to view the museum.

Sarah Flinders, a graduate in American studies, volunteered within the museum. She described the beading on the clothes in the exhibits. They would make beads out of quills and bones, intricately threading them onto ceremonial clothes.

The beads you typically see on the shoes only came after the Europeans began to trade with them. Although many of the artifacts are centuries old, some are only several decades old.

“A big reason why they are so valuable is because a lot of the culture has gone away” Flinders said.

The Museum of Peoples and Cultures is located south of campus at 100 E. 700 North and is used as a teaching museum to remind viewers of their ancestors. The exhibits change occasionally, but each includes genuine artifacts and replicas.

The museum hosts guided tours as well as activities for date night, family home evening, cub scouts and boy scouts. Its mission is to educate visitors, collect artifacts and share the importance of ancestry and ancient culture.

As quoted on the wall in the museum by Andre Malraux explained, “Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, love, and of thought.”

Allison Alterman likes to swim in the ocean for exercise near her home on Hawaii’s Big Island. Sometimes her swimming group will see spinner dolphins gliding or jumping near their course.

If the dolphins stick around, tour boats will inevitably show up, sometimes 20 at a time, all dropping passengers with floaties in the water for a swim. For many, it’s a chance to realize a long-held dream.

For the dolphins, however, they “come into the shore to rest and it doesn’t seem like they’re able to do that because they’re surrounded,” Alterman said.

Scientists are concerned the intense interest is harming the nocturnal animals because they need to rest after foraging for food all night. Now, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is preparing to propose rules to help protect the dolphins.

The agency could ban swimming with Hawaii spinner dolphins or prohibit people from shallow bays when the dolphins are resting.

“Disturbing their resting behaviors can actually affect their long term health and the health of the population,” said Ann Garrett, the assistant regional administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service’s protected resources division for the Pacific Islands.

Garrett said the agency plans to propose rules in June. The regulations could affect over 200 dolphin-related businesses operating in the state as well as recreational swimmers and other ocean users.

Claudia Merrill, co-owner of Dolphin Discoveries in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island, said she would welcome some regulations, particularly if rules would prohibit swimming with dolphins during their prime resting hours from late morning to mid-afternoon.

Tour operators must be educated to watch for the signs when the dolphins are settling into their rest state, Merrill said. One key indication is when a pod of dolphins synchronizes its dives and swims.

“It should be a sustainable industry. It can be a sustainable industry,” Merrill said.

Some Kona operators follow guidelines that local tours established, which include avoiding four dolphin resting bays between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. But Merrill said only three of the 12 Kona coast tour operators she knows of follow the guidelines.

Garrett said her agency has heard reports of vessels chasing down pods at high speed and corralling the dolphins into an area.

Hawaii’s spinner dolphins feast on fish and small crustaceans that surface from the ocean’s depths at night. When the sun rises, they head for shallow bays to hide from tiger sharks and other predators.

To the untrained eye, the dolphins appear to be awake during the day because they’re swimming.

But because they sleep by resting half of their brains and keeping the other half awake to surface and breathe, they may be sleeping even when they’re maneuvering through the water.

Julian Tyne, an honorary postdoctoral researcher at Australia’s Murdoch University, said spinner dolphins off the Big Island were exposed to human interaction about 80 percent of the time over the three years he studied them from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The median time between exposures was just 10 minutes, he said.

Tyne said he doesn’t know whether this human interaction is changing dolphin behavior. But he said the dolphins may not be resting as deeply as they need, which could harm their ability to forage for food at night and their ability to reproduce.

The fisheries service first signaled it would consider regulations in 2005, after tour offerings exploded the previous decade.

But instead of proposing rules, officials have sponsored research to better understand spinner dolphin behavior and promoted a voluntary program that discouraged swimming with the animals. But the guidelines have done little to deter dolphin swim tours.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits harassing dolphins, but swimming with them falls into a grey zone under the law.

Federal authorities have prosecuted tour operators for feeding bottlenose dolphins in Florida waters, but dolphin feeding has never been a problem in Hawaii.

Jennifer Hall, a musician visiting from Chicago, joined about ten others on an early morning tour from Waianae about an hour’s drive from Honolulu on Oahu island.

They jumped in the water to see dolphins swim back and forth, surfacing and descending to the ocean floor about 20 to 25 feet below. Some tourists attempted to swim after the dolphins, but guides held them back saying they should “observe not disturb.”

Their boat, together with about five others, formed a large semicircle around the animals.

Hall said she felt like she shared with the dolphins the serenity and calm of being in the water. Her partner Noam Wallenberg, a songwriter, said it was “mind-blowing” and “vastly different” from seeing animals in a zoo.

“Being with creatures of the ocean right there and seeing them in their natural habitat was really wonderful. So beautiful,” she said.