Biological Field Experiences at Hodges Gardens State Park
Hodges Gardens State Park and NSU have established a partnership that will allow NSU to use the park’s natural resources for educational purposes in hopes of increasing interest in biological science.
“I envision this as one big classroom for Northwestern,” dean of the College of Science and Technology Austin Temple said.
A.J. Hodges State Park is “a wealth of fauna and geological structures” and provides a great opportunity for field studies, because some portions of the Gardens have been protected and therefore left completely as nature intended, Temple said.
The park will serve as a site for scientific field studies for not only NSU students and faculty. Students from nearby schools can also do studies to go along with their regular classroom studies. This education program will supply hands-on experiences for students from an early age.
“This partnership will hopefully get young people involved in science and get them enthused over biological science, so that when they come to college, they will choose to continue down that road,” director of biological field experiences at NSU John Byrd said. “The primary goal is to help bring students into the sciences and keep them here.”
In April 2007, Hodges Gardens was donated to the State and Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, according to the park’s official Web site, Toledo-Bend.com. “When the state took over the Gardens, they had not been kept up to the standard that the founder had intended,” Temple said. “They are having to do some work on them.”
NSU is planning to have greenhouses, an indoor lab and the natural outdoor environment for students to study on-site at Hodges Gardens. Students should be visiting the Gardens as early as next semester depending on how quickly the state park service completes its own repairs.
Once the park is ready, NSU will be able to coordinate trips for classes or just for special interest groups, such as bird watchers, on the weekends. “We should even be able to provide some transportation so that students will not have to pay out of pocket,” Temple said. The Gardens may also provide an internship program for biology, ecotourism and possibly recreational activity students, Temple estimated.
“This is an exciting opportunity, because while we read about DNA or people trying to cure cancer, that all starts with basic biology,” Byrd said. Hodges Gardens and NSU planned this partnership to impact students’ overall interest in the sciences and hold that attention throughout their academic career.
