Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
My name is Jim Colbert. I am an Associate Professor in the Ecology Evolution and
Organismal will Biology department.
I certainly would recommend students join a Learning Community.
And the reasons are that Learning Communities make it
easy for students to rapidly and effectively adjust to Iowa State
helps them make friends who have common interests
and it helps them be academically successful here at Iowa State.
The Learning Community I’m involved with is BEST
Biology Education Success Teams,
and certainly the most unique activity associated with that Learning Community
is a service-learning activity that we call the Skunk River Navy.
The Skunk River runs through the eastern part of Ames
and we provide students with the opportunity though we do not require them to do so.
We provide them with the opportunity to accompany us
out onto the river on a Saturday early in fall semester.
We spent some time looking at the biological diversity in the river.
Students see some of the very same organisms that they're studying in their
introductory biology class
and then we spend the rest of the day hauling trash out of the river.
We've been doing this for the last twelve years,
and in that time we hauled out a total of fifty seven tons of trash -
most of which has been recycled.
So it's an interesting opportunity for students to
get to know other new students in the program,
get to know older students who are serving as peer mentors.
and get to know some of the faculty and staff
in a very different environment than the environment inside of a classroom.
It's great if you have a Learning Community that's available
to you when you start here at Iowa State,
but I think the really important thing is to not just be a
member in name of that Learning Community
but to actively participate in the Learning Community.
That's the way that you’re going to get the most benefit out of being
a part of the Learning Communities program.