Students in the Animal Behavior field course collecting pumpkin seed minnows in Budd Lake.
Before sunrise, students in the Ornithology course at Itasca Biological Station and Laboratories (IBSL) are already venturing across damp grass to set up mist nets at the edge of the woods. They’ll spend the day learning to identify birds by sight and sound, collecting and analyzing data, and discovering the ecology of the region’s resident and migratory birds.
It’s a deeply immersive experience shared by students in all of the station’s field biology courses. Currently, IBSL offers Mammalogy, Animal Behavior, Mycology, Ornithology, Microbiology, and Entomology, with each course running for either three or five weeks in the spring. Just as the academic year winds down on university campuses, the station begins to buzz with activity. Associate Director Emily Schilling describes it as “like studying abroad, but with immersion in the culture of field science.”
As part of a living-learning community, students connect over shared interests and shared experiences — through field work, conversations over meals with faculty and peers, spontaneous canoe outings, and impromptu line-dancing lessons. “The immersion is in the learning, but also in the experience,” she says. “It's about getting to be around other people excited to share an experience in nature.”
Emily Rattini, a junior from the University of Wyoming taking Mammalogy to gain field experience, describes it this way: "It's a beautiful area and very different from where I go to school. Experiencing all this with a group of like-minded people is amazing. In general, the people here are what I love about it. I made several really good friends and am even learning to line dance. Two of the girls are teaching any interested party. It’s silly stuff like that, but just fun."
A curiosity-driven community
Established in 1907, IBSL is one of the oldest field stations in the United States. Located in the heart of Minnesota’s oldest state park, Itasca State Park, the station has been a destination for generations of students seeking hands-on, place-based learning. Today, IBSL continues that tradition by providing a unique environment where students explore biology, develop field skills, and experience the many connections between science and the natural world.
Field biology courses at IBSL attract students from all of University of Minnesota’s campuses, from nearby institutions such as Bemidji State University, and from colleges and universities as far away as Georgia, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. Students quickly bond over a shared fascination with the living world and a shared experience of learning in an iconic place. “It's a group experience with other people at the same level of focus and immersion,” says IBSL Director Jonathan Schilling.
A shared enthusiasm for observing and documenting the natural world is evident everywhere you turn at the station. Everyone contributes to a running list of birds seen by students, staff, and instructors on a giant Post-It pad in the dining hall. Students enthusiastically share their research at a “no mic night” (no PowerPoint, either!) and swap notes about wildlife sightings. Even the bunkhouses where students sleep reflect this tendency. Each one bears the Latin name of a local plant or animal.
Finding her field
For Madison Misterek, a UMN-Twin Cities student majoring in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, taking Animal Behavior at IBSL was part of a progression of sorts that started with Nature of Life @Itasca — a four-day first-year orientation program for incoming College of Biological Sciences students. Misterek loved her brief visit at the station, so when the opportunity arose to head north again last fall for the "Find Your Field" program, she was all in. The program is designed to provide students with a taste of field biology. She took a mini-module in animal behavior with longtime field biology instructor Professor Brian Wisenden.
“We just started talking and I said that I was looking for field experience and a research opportunity,” Madison recalls. That brief interaction led her back to the station for the field course and an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program project. She is investigating how pumpkin seed sunfish affect the life cycle of brain parasites in minnows. Madison notes that in her class, students get to "run experiments and test hypotheses, which is really unique.” The experience has affirmed her desire to pursue a career in research.
Going to the source
Ray Phillips, a junior majoring in neuroscience in the College of Biological Sciences, made the trip north to take Field Mycology because it offered the opportunity to move beyond what he’s heard in popular culture about the potential medicinal applications of fungi. “I wanted to go beyond buzzwords and understand from a scientific point of view how it works,” he says.
The course, taught by station director Jonathan Schilling, a professor in Plant and Microbial Biology, and Christine Solomon, an associate professor in the Center for Drug Design, takes students to the field to identify fungi and challenges them to look beneath the surface and analyze how these organisms actually interact with their environment.
“Christine and I are constantly working to improve the course by meeting student learning objectives with the flexibility we need to meet the moment,” says Jonathan Schilling. “If it is a dry spring, we may lean on an aquatic fungal module in the pontoon boat. If the morels are out, we will focus specimen work-ups on the Ascomycota fungi.”
While Ray’s interest in mycology is rooted in academics, he sees field biology as an opportunity to connect the dots. “The beautiful thing about this experience is that you take all of what you’ve learned about physics and chemistry and biology — everything you've done — you come here, and you can see how it all connects with everything that's happening in the environment. All of a sudden, it’s more beautiful than anything you've ever looked at.” –Stephanie Xenos
