In the Wild: Science Writers Explore Montana’s Wilderness and Wildlife Biology

4 Credits.

With its snow-capped mountains, icy trout-filled streams, glaciers, bison, and grizzly bears, Montana is a land of rugged natural beauty. It is also home to a unique set of environmental concerns. Those glaciers are melting. Invasive species threaten native habitats. The range and population of the grizzly are hotly debated. Research indicates climate change is increasing the size and frequency of wildfires. Students in this residency course will meet with scientists -- wildlife biologists, ecologists, and wildfire management experts -- who use Montana’s lakes, mountains, forests, and animals as their laboratories to explore such issues. Students will also consider Traditional Ecological Knowledge, older Indigenous approaches to ecology, which are helping to inform today’s science and policies. In field trips to sites of active research, students will practice reporting skills and gather story ideas; a previous class took excursions to a lakeside ecology research station; a fire science laboratory; and the Clark and Blackfoot Rivers, site of a Superfund success story and the inspiration for Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It. Students will engage in craft discussions and creative writing exercises and be invited to take part in an open mic. The group will join with MA in Writing program students for lectures on Native American literature, culture, and science, and have a chance to attend nightly talks by eminent authors. Discussions will explore how writers can explain complex, nuanced environmental issues to broad groups of readers, and how writers have evoked the lyricism of Big Sky country in their prose.