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College Classroom Goes Outside
When your field of study is the outdoors, going to class doesn't always mean filing into the classroom. Moments after piling out of their school van, 16 Kirkwood College students were face to fin with over 20 fish. They'd been learning about Iowa fish species in aquatic wildlife class; how to identify them, what they ate, what habitat they prefer. This stop at the Lake Macbride fisheries station was their quiz. DNR fisheries biologist Paul Sleeper displayed each live fish; taking questions from the students. Each wrote down his or her choice on a clipboard worksheet. With quizzes collected, Sleeper pulled each fish back out of its aerated tank; naming it and noting identifying characteristics. "Dark gray; the mouth goes straight forward; no teeth on this one. It's mainly a filter feeder," noted Sleeper, as gripped a slippery buffalo. "All the suckers and carp mouths will point down. They feed off the bottom." The class is one required in Kirkwood's Parks and Natural Resources program. "I need to do some studying. The carp family's pretty hard for me," laughed Renee Regenitter. "I learned it's a lot easier to see them on slides than in person." Still, the day at the lake reinforced her choice for a future job. "I want to be outside, dealing with the fish for a career; maybe as a naturalist." For Robert Weaver, the up-close review was a great idea. "I go fishing a lot, so most of them I knew. I got a couple mixed up; thought the white bass was a wiper," admitted Weaver. This...gets people interested. On a (classroom) slide, the colors might be a lot different than up close. The atmosphere is neat."
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