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March 28, 2024

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Spring Housing Guide

Students offered chance to go to Yellowstone through class

Some students will have the opportunity to go to Yellowstone National Park through a class the University is offering next semester.

It is called the “Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Field Experience.” A spring semester course offered by the Department of the Environment and Sustainability. 

Students signing up for the class, ENVS 4930, will work in a classroom setting for 15 weeks and spend one week in Yellowstone after the end of the school year. The class has 33 slots, as of now, the class has one vacancy and will have an informal wait-list in case of drop-outs.

“I wish we could be out there for the full 15 weeks,” said Craig Wittig, a part-time instructor for the University’s Firelands campus teaching the course.

The class is an interdisciplinary that looks at the challenges of maintaining the 18-million acre ecosystem of Yellowstone.

The University has offered the class for around 20 years, but it is not held every year. The name changes to reflect the destination, including British Columbia, Vancouver Island, Algonquin Park and the Canaveral Seashore. Yellowstone makes the rotation about every three years.

Wittig said he enjoys studying Yellowstone due to it being the most intact ecosystem in the lower 48 states, leaving it with all of the animals that could have been found prior to non-native human involvement.

“That is hard to find,” said Wittig. “We have killed off – mainly predators, but a lot of other species as well. [Yellowstone] is a place where you can still find all of those animals.”

In the classroom setting study will focus on the history and problems related to maintenance and will also prepare students for the week spent in Yellowstone. Topics will vary from management of wolves and grizzly bears, to more human issues such as use of snowmobiles in the winter.

“It’s essentially impossible to maintain [the ecosystem], but it is the attempting of the challenge to do it that the class focuses on,” said Wittig.

Since the class covers such a broad topic, the learning outcomes – and by extension the post graduate fields of interest – have a large variance. The class will have the opportunity to speak to past graduates of the University including a wolf biologist and an invasive plant biologist, both who work for Yellowstone.

The class will also talk to former students that do not work for Yellowstone, but live in the area affected by it including a town manager and an artist.

“It gets real interesting when we get multiple perspectives,” said Wittig.

He uses the idea of a business major looking at capital versus an environmental major looking at natural resources to protect.

Because of the multiple viewpoints of the class, Wittig strives to keep the class non-confrontational.

“If you say something that I do not agree with I’m not going to say ‘that’s ridiculous’,” said Wittig adding that he holds the students to the same standard. Wittig hopes to look at all viewpoints expressed in the class.

Yellowstone, the 3.4-square mile national park, is settled in the upper left corner of Wyoming. The park has an average elevation of 5,500-feet above sea level. Bowling Green, for comparison, is sitting at 700-feet above sea level.

Students will be sleeping in hotels during the night, but the days will be spent hiking through and around the park area.

Wittig said part of the class will focus on preparation for the long days. The class will look at the proper gear needed for hiking, understanding predators in the area and basic physical conditioning.

Wittig also stressed that, while there are predators in the area – mostly bears – there is no cause for alarm.

“We have seen [predators], but staying in large groups and being mindful of them will keep them away,” he said.

The class may be about ecosystems, but a large undertone is looking at post graduation careers.

Wittig knows not everyone who takes the class will end up working at Yellowstone.

“You don’t have to have a great career,” he said. “But I want you to think about how to obtain a career. I don’t think we do enough of that.”

“You spend a lot of time and money, I want you to have a job when you are done.”

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