Semester in the Wild
America's Wildest Classroom
Contents: About the Collection | About the About Page | Tech
About the Collection
The Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness protects 2.3 million acres of wilderness, and the Taylor Wilderness Research Station–affectionately known as the “Taylor Ranch”–is at its heart. Since the inaugural semester in 2013, the Semester in the Wild Program has brought students into this wilderness to take courses on environmental history, wilderness management, stream ecology, wildlife biology, environmental writing, and outdoor leadership. In addition to earning college credits, these lucky students learn about their place in the world and what makes us all “wild.” Browse this site to read or view student testimonials from the 2019 “Stargazer Tribe.”
The wilderness is no ordinary classroom, with four walls, no windows, and a heavy textbook. Students and teachers live and learn in close quarters, with students occupying a row of wall tents next to Big Creek and faculty housed in the nearby DeVlieg cabin, built with the generous support of Janet DeVlieg Pope and the DeVlieg Foundation.
Students and faculty spend evenings, weekends, mealtime, and free time, together. Because of our close proximity, students learn at all times of the day. Office hours can be on a sleeping bag, on a downed tree, or on a hike. An important part of college is social, learning to live and work well with others while recognizing that we share this world with humans and nonhumans alike. What better place to learn these lessons than in America’s Wildest Classroom?
Technical Credits - CollectionBuilder
This digital collection is built with CollectionBuilder, an open source tool for creating digital collection and exhibit websites that is developed by faculty librarians at the University of Idaho Library following the Lib-STATIC methodology.
This site is built using CollectionBuilder-gh which utilizes the static website generator Jekyll and GitHub Pages to build and host digital collections and exhibits.