This semester, Ivy Tech Community College’s Fort Wayne Campus is offering a marine biology class. This is the first time the college has offered Special Topics in Marine Biology. Special Topics classes are those that aren’t already part of the curriculum rotation and typically come about from student or instructor interest. Students in the class will spend their spring break at the J.N. Roth Marine Biology Station in Long Key, Fla.
Chris Barlow, an associate professor who teaches biology, has been developing the class for a few years. She spent time in May 2017 with a Goshen College marine biology class at the biology station. Goshen owns the station, and Ivy Tech is renting it for the class.
“Getting into the ocean and seeing the things you read about is so exciting,” Barlow says. “The diversity and biology of the ocean will give students this sensational experience that I’m hoping will excite them on a deep level.”
Haylee Glashauser is one student in the class who will be traveling to Florida this month. Glashauser is a business administration student who plans to transfer her credits upon graduation to a four-year school, where she hopes to earn a bachelor’s degree in marine biology. Glashauser had taken a class previously with Barlow, she says, and when she learned Barlow was teaching a marine biology class, she was excited to enroll.
“Going to the Keys would be a life-changing experience for me and help me really see if this is the profession for me,” she says.
Barlow and her students will travel to Long Key from March 11 to 17. Learn more about biology at Ivy Tech at IvyTech.edu/biology. Read more about special topics classes here.
Inside Ivy Tech 