Reflections on Biodiversity and Stewardship

I was thrilled to take the Biodiversity Stewardship course, with Professor Jim Egenrieder, as my first course as a Master's student at Virginia Tech. This course taught me numerous skills that can be transferred to future courses, along with future career opportunities. 

Although this course was asynchronous, it definitely felt like a field-research course itself. With my classmates and myself each having specific 'study-areas' (as reflected in our class blogs), there was plenty of exploration and research to do and gather. 

One thing that was quite enjoyable from this asynchronous course was that my classmates and I all had 'study-areas' from regions all over the United States. We all became regional, national stewards.

Within the blog posts, you can see that assignments ranged from local, to regional, to international perspectives. 

I gained extensive insight as to what resources there are when using mapping tools, such as the Web Soil Survey and Google's MyMaps feature. Researching the Lake Tahoe Basin's climate and weather information also gave me a bigger understanding of what climate and weather patterns there are in other dry and temperate regions. Although I initially had thought that I was familiar with the Lake Tahoe Basin, after taking this course I now feel like a naturalist/steward of the region! 

I also very much enjoyed reading my classmates' posts on the state-level requirements there are to create a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. 

I highly enjoyed all the skills and information I learned of all the different regions there are in the United States, I definitely will be looking forward to taking a future course with Jim.