In October 2003, halfway through the semester, two Ecology classes were shown the “Less/More” dichotomy of the National Science Standards, and they were asked to record their own feelings based upon the Ecology class experience. The following are representative responses:

    “This format is better because, honestly, I can’t remember facts longer than a year. I cram for tests to remember and forget. By doing activities you always remember what you did if it interests you.”
     “Once you see and understand something, that’s when you can start learning the big vocabulary for it. And instead of lectures, letting people investigate the situation is more valuable.”
    “I can’t wait to the next day to see what we’re doing. I wish all my classes were this exciting”.
   “I like doing stuff where I don’t have to feel like I’m in school.”
   “I like how we work as a class and practically everything in class together”.
   “The class taught me to apply the concepts to my own real life experiences, and that helps me retain the knowledge better.”
  “I am a concrete-sequential person and I like having things in order. This class has brought me out of my uptight, everything has to be this way and it cannot be changed attitude.”
  “If the teacher is having a great day, the students will pick up on that. When the teacher is dull, the class reflects on that and is lazy. It is cool when the teacher admits he/she doesn’t know something.”
Along with the Less/More assessment, each student was asked to list the two most important things they had learned in class. The following are representative responses:
     “The things people spend their money on are the things they value most.”
    “How good some wild mushrooms taste. I also like the fact I can walk outside and find some and bring them in and cook them.”
   “I never knew that watching a butterfly fly off my finger could be so amazing. It left this enormous feeling of love inside my soul that can’t ever be erased. From that experience, I learned to quit looking for God’s miracles so hard. “
  “The world is full of lumpers and splitters.”
  “Everyone’s learning style is different.”
  “I never knew there were that many species in the world.”
  "There are many wild plants with medicinal uses, but laziness, or busyness, has set into society and we spend incredible amounts of money on prescription drugs.’
   “It’s hard to say, I have learned so much, but what I think that is most important is my praying mantis project. I never knew that praying mantis’s have more than one set of mandibles. I learned this through watching.” – (emphasis added)
  “There’s a whole other world out there with insects in it that we know nothing about.”
  “First, I now think of things globally and locally. How things affect me and the world. If you look at something big, for example the color of a plant is not always the dye color. You can compare it to something in your life. Like maybe you’re not as happy on the inside as you want people to think on the outside. The more I do in here, the more I find myself comparing my life to things in nature.”
  “Plants and shrubs we think of as weeds can be used for medicinal reasons. . . “
  “Viruses and bacteria are always changing to fit it’s new host. And because of this continuous change, and its inability to find the virus’s normal host, we have been unable to find the cure for diseases.”
  “How to skin and cure animal skins. How to make scrapers out of rocks.” (flint knapping)
  “Respect and responsibility both start with the letter “R”, and they work together hand in hand.”
  “I have a talent for pinning insects.” (emphasis added)
   “It’s neat that I can now drive down the road or walk into my backyard and be able to tell what kind of plants there are and what things come from that plant.”
  “I learned about species and biodiversity.  It’s easy for someone to overlook the smaller creatures on our planet, but doing projects like (this) helped me understand about looking at the world around me. I look closer and I’m more aware.”
  “We humans are one of the smallest species out there. I used to think that we were higher in the species.”
“ One thing that made me think about how lucky I am is the number of AIDs cases in Africa. I would never have thought there was that many people in one part of the world that were so affected.”
 “ Nature has a counter punch to poison ivy. As I did research (on jewelweed) I found out that you can make a soap to use. . . . I found it very useful”
  “How to take the information we learn in here and apply it to our everyday life. Everything relates to something bigger when we look ‘outside the box’ to understand it.”
  How even the smallest of bugs/species can be important.”

Self-assessments like these can be difficult to quantify; however, one can see a general theme of self awareness, connection to nature and openness to new ideas.

Summary
    This Ecology class is a hands-on course. It interests students in personal scientific inquiry and engages them in the excitement and richness of nature. It helps enlighten them on the natural laws that govern their relationships with each other and the rest of Nature. Most of all, students leave the course better prepared to be stewards of the earth and responsive members of a global community. They also learn about the nature of themselves, by seeing themselves in nature.