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Registration for the Highlands Biological Station’s summer workshops and courses is now open.
Dr. James Costa, executive director of the biological station, said that this year’s selection of courses is pretty diverse.
“The courses are divided up between academic offerings and then general interest offerings,” Costa said. “We have several that are old standards that we offer every year, for example a course on the biology of Plethodontid salamanders. This course has been running for many, many years. Since other amphibians are important from a conservation aspect, there are other courses being taught on amphibian conservation with that course being taught by one of our professors from Ohio State. We always offer two courses of the aquatic amphibology with the legendary instructor John Morris from Clemson. He’s a real guru in the field and his courses are always on high demand. There are more, but those are examples of the college offerings.”
Anybody can take any of the courses, but Costa said there are some workshops that lean more towards citizens.
Some general interest workshops for this year include Lichen Identification, taught by Dr. Jessi Allen and Dr. James Lendemer, Drawing Leaves in the Studio and in the Field, taught by Margie Bauer, and Mushrooms of the Carolinas and Southern Appalachian Region, taught by Dr. Alan Bessette and Arleen Bessette.
“These courses are more of a general offering,” Costa said. “These are aimed for a broader audience, and they vary from a few hours to a half-day or whole day. Our mushroom identification class is hugely popular.”
Some workshops for the community that are in the works are Introduction to Fireflies of the Highlands Plateau, with Dr. Luiz Silveira, a firefly expert, Natural Dyes, with Susan Levielle, and Geology of the Highlands Plateau, with Bill Jacobs.
Costa said these workshops and classes are tremendously important to the community and provide more than just education.
“The model of the field station like in Highlands is to really immerse students in the field,” Costa said. “One of the real virtues of having a field station, especially in a place like Highlands, is that we are treating our surrounding environment like an extension of the classroom. By design, all of those classes involve getting those students out to get to personally learn about natural systems. I think it is hugely important, not only for the strictly academic classes, but for the general offerings, as well. The general offerings are intended to educate, enrich and the people who take these classes already have an interest on the topic, they are just looking to further educate themselves by listening to an array of experts.”
With the Omicron variant of COVID-19 spreading, Costa hopes that they will be allowed to keep hosting classes this year.
“For this model to work, you really need to be there in the field, with the experts,” Costa said. “Zoom doesn’t really transfer well. We sure hope, and right now we expect, to be able to offer these courses in person. We always make sure to follow whatever the current university guidelines are. Last year, we had to make sure that everybody who signed up for our courses showed evidence of vaccination, because these are pretty intimate classes. What we will do this summer, I don’t know yet. Right now, the plan is to go forward with plans as normal. If things get much worse with the pandemic, the worst-case scenario is that we would have to cancel the classes.”
For those that would like more information on the classes being offered, visit https://highlandsbiological.org/about/workshops-and-courses/.
- By Christopher Lugo