This class is about teaching students
basic biological concepts that are
related to marine biology but we teach
them both the biology, and then we teach
them sort of how to understand the
biology by using mathematical models.
Biology and math are very closely
related and math is a very important
powerful tool to try and understand
biological questions, but I think having
undergraduates get that experience where
both math and biology are taught in
a very integrated fashion is a very
different experience than what a traditional
undergraduate gets. You look at what
the biologists have to say, you turn it
into an abstract model, you look at what
the model has to say and you go back to
the biologist and maybe they perform
experiments or go out in the field and
they learn, you know, something new to
look at and then that informs new models
and so it kind of goes around and around.
This close collaboration of a biologist and
a mathematician coming together to teach
a course, the fact that there's
these sorts of opportunities and that
students then get to also travel as a
part of this kind of course. I mean those
things, an interdisciplinary travel-learning course
is a very special
opportunity. The biology is basically
putting words to the math in the
application to actual real-life models
helps a lot. Oftentimes the best way to
understand the biological system is to
model it mathematically, because then you
can see what kind of changes you can
make to the biological system without
actually having to go in and change the
system. For our trip, which is really the
the field experience for this course, we
went to St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. It
was amazing. It was definitely extremely
gorgeous in the Virgin Islands, the water
was crystal-clear blue. Being able to
collect data and have it relate to class
was completely phenomenal.
We snorkeled all day, every day. It was
amazing.
I saw incredible things: sea turtles,
stingrays, I saw a shark at one point,
there was an octopus. Having come with all
the knowledge they spent the first half
of the semester learning about
all these things and then, "Oh, we studied
that fish!" and "Oh, that's that coral species
we learn to identify," and having seen
those moments where they get to see what
they saw in a book or a preserved
specimen in the lab and they see it out
in the field moving around and doing its
thing is really fun to watch.
