Stout student explore Wisconsin waters, fish zoology during hands-on experience

MENOMONIE — For 15 students at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, something seemed “fishy” about a four-week course that brought them to the lakes of northern Wisconsin.

It’s not that it was suspicious, but Stout’s ichthyology, the branch of zoology which deals with fishes, got students face to face with some of Wisconsin’s native fish.

“We didn’t have a lot of organizational courses at the time,” said Mike Bessert, the biology professor from UW-Stout who began the course 15 years ago. “This seemed like a natural move, especially with the relevance to the state of fishing — fishing in general is so important to the state’s economy as well.”

For the four weeks throughout the summer, the course has implemented a hybrid-based design of three initial weeks online followed by one week of courses centering on and around the Hunt Hill Audubon Sanctuary near Sarona, Wis.

The main focus of the course is, quite simply: fish. Students learn and experience a wide variety of places and ideas, from anatomy and physiology to aspects of the fishing industry, fish production and management of these ecosystems.

One day of a course will be spent studying the reproductive habits and territorial behavior of sunfish, while another day will be spent far north in Lake Superior. Throughout the length of the course, Bessert said it is possible for students to come across 40 to 50 different species of fish.

“It is a broad fish biology course, but there are a number of significant course objectives that I want them to meet,” he said. “Of course, they need to know all major facets of fish biology, which is quite diverse. So not only do they learn about game species here in Wisconsin, but also marine fish and all different kinds of fish and how they are adapted to their local and regional environments.”

The experience falls under the category of a Stout Core foundational general education course, which seeks to boost skills in areas like the natural sciences, communication, analytic and ethical reasoning, social responsibility and more.

With a consistent ratio of half science majors to half non-science majors, Bessert said it is often that students learn as much from each other as they do from the course.

“We always have a really interesting heterogeneous mix of students,” he said. “At other schools, a course like this would be only for majors… it is a bit challenging for non-majors, but I wanted to open it up so anyone here at Stout — and we get students beyond Stout as well sometimes — can take this course and gain an appreciation for fish bio.”

To a student like Lyndsey Krist, a video production major at UW-Stout, the on-sight final week of the course was an opportunity to photograph and give a photo essay of the class.

For Jake Swanson, a computer science major with a focus on ichthyology, the class had him experience a hands-on environment in a field that interests him.

Recalling various experiences, Swanson talked about his memory of using a seine net to catch fish swimming around the shore. In another experience he shared, he and his peers stayed up late at night to try and correctly identify the species of fish which they had in the lab.

But apart from other memories of the course, Swanson said that the ichthyology course stands out as a distinctive experience among many throughout his time in college.

“It was a very unique experience getting hands-on experience not only dissecting fish, but also examining them thoroughly and looking into what species they are. It was very insightful and definitely gave me a new appreciation for the whole field,” he said.

As the course continues year after year, Bessert looked back on his inspiration and said that his experience and knowledge with teaching education from the third grade up is what helped create this idea.

“At every level, experiential learning really is the champion — where they are in the element with their hands-on. More often than not, it is the strongest uptake for students,” he said. “And in courses like this, I thought this is an easy route for that immersive learning experience and when I design this, and a couple other courses like this, I really try to provide experiences for them that will maybe bring out a child-like sense of wonder and excitement.”