Student Involvement

Grinnell Dining Service's local foods effort appears in the "Food Service Director Magazine." Courtesy of Food Service Director Magazine

Local Food and Grinnell Dining Services: A Group Independent Study. Students in this course spent the spring 2006 semester studying the Grinnell College Dining Services program and its relationship to locally grown food.

The Prairie Earthworks Project provided students in Will Pergl's Sculpture 242 Class the opportunity to meditate on the geographic area of central Iowa, what it is and what it once was. This project was an excellent opportunity for the students in the class to explore this contemporary tradition of sculpture produced and experienced in the natural landscape. The Conard Environmental Research Area (CERA) is large enough one can imagine what central Iowa was once like before the land was farmed.

Students in Jonathan Andelson's tutorial classes, Decline and Renewal in the Heartland (Fall 2003), and Decline and Renewal in the Heartland (Fall 2004) had the opportunity read about and discuss the changes that took place in the heartland as agriculture expanded and replaced the tallgrass prairie. The classes visited prairie restoration sites, local farms and agribusinesses, and participated in community events and outreach activities. The students' final papers for the tutorial were compiled and published in booklet form.

Effects of Native Prairie Plantings on Insect Diversity, Michaela Meckel. This research looked at the effects of native prairie plantings in an urban setting on insect diversity. The research revealed that the more native plant species in a planting, the greater the insect diversity. Additionally, it was found that the greater percentage of the planting’s edge was concrete, the lower the insect diversity. These findings lend support to the move towards planting in urban areas with more native species by indicating that urban native plantings do in fact have ecological significance, in this case through the promotion of greater insect diversity.

Our Town: Glimpses of Grinnell, Iowa, in the 19^th Century.  Jon Andelson’s 2007 tutorial, “Our Town: the World at Our Doorstep,” focused on the history and contemporary character of the town of Grinnell.  In the first part of the semester, using mostly primary sources, students researched aspects of the community in the nineteenth century.  Their papers –covering such topics as early settlement, railroads, banking, and foodways -- are collected here.

Tillers: A Journal of Prairie Restoration Research. As one of several sections of Introduction to Biological Inquiry (Biology 150), Professor Jackie Brown's Prairie Restoration introduces students to basic concepts in biology while emphasizing the ways that biologists ask questions, test hypotheses through observation and experimentation, and communicate their results. The goal is to provide beginning students with a sense of the excitement -- and the ambiguities -- of authentic research. Every year their research papers are published in an in-house journal, Tillers: A Journal of Prairie Restoration Research. The journal creates a community of learning across the years, allowing students to build upon and modify the studies of their predecessors -- just like scientists!