Mark R. Hutchinson, Ph.D.is a Biology faculty member with Blinn College, a two-year community college in Bryan, TX. He primarily teaches Biology 1407, Biology 2 for Science Majors. Mark also gets to serve as the Assistant Dean for Biology with Blinn College. When not at Blinn, Mark chooses to spend his time working with various ministries at his home church, A&M Church of Christ. There, he serves as the board chair for Sonshine School, a Christian pre-school that is housed within the church building. He additionally serves with the church's marriage ministry, international student ministry, and teaches as many classes as leadership will let him. Mark is also active with the Rio Brazos Audubon Society attending meetings, going on field trips, and participating in the society's annual Christmas Bird Count. He lives in College Station with his very patient wife, his not-so-patient three children, about 22 chickens (they won't hold still while counting...!), and as many native plants as he can successfully keep from killing.
As part of The Prairie Project, I had a lot of great ideas for projects, activities, etc. that could be implemented. However, because of administrative regulations within the institution, I could not get approval to implement these ideas. Blinn College requires that all sections of a given course offer the same educational experience, regardless of faculty member or campus on which the section is taught. Because of these requirements, the only changes I was allowed to implement were to modify the examples used for the content already being taught in my courses. I modified a series of lessons, removing original content and substituting prairie-centric examples and information. I additionally created a supplemental lesson that works through conservation, human interaction with, and management of the prairie ecosystem. To assess student learning about the prairie, I asked a series of knowledge, comprehension, analysis, and synthesis questions over the material I taught. However, my main interest was with a series of opinion-based questions embedded in one of my common exams. I asked students about there thoughts on the value of the prairie, if we should prioritize conserving it, and what they thought of fire as a tool to manage the prairie.
