Silver City, NM – Western New Mexico University has always encouraged hands-on involvement in their courses, from the Police Academy, to Education, to the Natural Science Department, all departments have found a way to give students the opportunity to go out and experience the real thing.
This semester Dr. Manda Jost, from the Natural Science Department, is taking her Invertebrate Zoology class down to the Sea of Cortez in Mexico to give her students the chance to get up close to the very animals they are studying in the classroom. Other courses in the Natural Science Department that have gone down to Mexico to do field studies are Jost’s Marine Ecology course, Entomology Course and Randy Jennings Herpetology course.
Jost elaborated by stating, “You can’t really teach a course like this without getting into the habitats that these organisms live in. It’s just not the same, here you get a dead smelly preserved starfish and that’s just not the same as having the real living thing in the palm of your hand with its bright bright colors, feeling it moving and tickling your palm.”
Sophomore, Kelsey Sessions who is currently taking Jost’s Invertebrate Zoology course said, “I think it is important to go out because there is only so much you can learn in the classroom. Getting out there allows you to see and experience new things and I think you can learn a lot more from that.”
However, what is also great about Western’s Natural Science Department is that they have extended these experiences, not only to our students but to other students from other universities as well. This past summer, Jost invited students from universities such as UNM, NMSU and universities in Arizona to enroll in her Marine Ecology course.
“I was surprised that Western had to offer this course and that it seemed so focused around field work because UNM is more medicine focused, but I thought it was great because I’ve never gotten to experience anything like that,” stated, Heather Buckley, a UNM senior, studying Biology, who enrolled in Jost’s Marine Ecology course this past summer.
Will Padilla, WNMU senior, who has taken both Invertebrate zoology and Marine Ecology, added, “its classes like these, that are really beneficial to students because it gives them idea of what their career is going to be like.” He added, “I think trips are awesome. I know for me personally if it wasn’t for these courses, I may have never gotten to experience of seeing the ocean or seeing the wildlife and biodiversity. I mean really how many people can say they’ve been able to stand on a beached whale.”
Jost’s Invertebrate Zoology class will be headed down this weekend, spending a whole week in Mexico, getting to be out in the field and observing marine life first hand. Jost added, “You absolutely see a difference in students, there is a positive response from students to experiencing these things in their living states.” She continued by quoting John Steinback, “There are three way’s to study animals dead, in a captivity environment and in their natural environment. We already do plenty of the first two, these trips are just another way of giving students a way to study these organisms.”
