Maine Perspective Front Page
Maine Natural History - Davis Style
Students move over rocks and through wetland grasses, keeping pace with their professor who is marching forward. At strategic locations, he stops to recite what seems like an endless stream of plant and animal names and relationships.
Information and sketches of water parsnips, pickerel weed and sweet gale are entered in field notebooks. Suddenly, the students are startled by the quiet.
Professor Ron Davis is watching a loon glide across the surface of Field's Pond.
Davis talks about the loon's natural history and its role on lake ecosystems. For Davis, it is an impromptu teaching opportunity. It also provides a window into Davis' philosophy that appreciation of nature is a path toward less destructive human behavior.
Nearly 500 University of Maine students have hiked, climbed and sloshed their way through the great outdoors to experience Davis' intense teaching style in the natural history course he created more than 15 years ago. The built-in physical and intellectual challenges students face when taking his course have made Davis something of a UMaine legend. The rigor that creates such a powerful learning experience is what Davis' students don't soon forget.
"If I could do it all over again, I'd sign up for that class in a heartbeat," says Jack Wu, who graduated in 1996 with a degree in natural resources. "Presently, I work for a private environmental consulting firm in Maine and I was able to use some of the information I learned in the class."
The awe of the natural world is something that Davis strives to impart through his courses, be it limnology, wetland biology, the travel courses he's taken to Northern Labrador, Dominica and the Florida Everglades, or BIO 205. He aims, as a teacher, researcher and photographer, to share his fascination with nature, to make the exotic feel familiar, and everyday surroundings magical.
"Psychologically, for many people, going to an area where everything looks different is a huge jolt to the brain. It's like being swept off into a fantasy," he says.
But this semester's classes, including BIO 205, are the last for Davis, professor of Biology and Quaternary studies, who joined the UMaine faculty in 1970 after a decade at Colby College. In the spring, he will shift his focus entirely to research as a step of his partial phased retirement. Davis says he has numerous scientific papers waiting to be written, and is involved in an ongoing research project on the ecology of Maine's peatlands.
Next fall, Field Natural History of Maine will be the responsibility of Associate Professor of Zoology Bill Glanz, who says he plans to keep a majority of Davis' syllabus intact. This semester, Glanz is attending the course with 41 students.
"Ron stands there, giving information about a tree, just reciting it off-hand from his own experience. It's impressive," Glanz says of the veteran teacher and researcher.
Students in BIO 205 study the flora, fauna and geology of forests, fields, streams, lakes, bogs, mountains and tidal pools. In preparation for their weekly field study, Davis offers preliminary lectures and slides, a 35-page chapter of his book, Natural History of Maine Ecosystems, and a variety of library reserve readings - information that Davis considers to be on a survey level.
"There's a lot of memorization involved, but apart from that, it's pretty basic. We really don't get into great detail," he says. "I want students to have a broad-brush understanding of the range of circumstances that exist in nature," Davis says.
But second- and third-year students don't find the material so basic. "I felt overwhelmed with information. There was so much to learn in such a little amount of time," says junior biology major Rachel McNamee.
Some students say Davis' multiple-choice exams and lab practicals are too detailed, asking questions such as the author of an important reserve reading, or examples of the altitudinal distribution of plants on Mt. Katahdin. "It's safe to say you're responsible for anything you ever saw," says Dan Blickensderfer, a student taking BIO 205 this semester. "If he mentions it, or something next to it, you should know it for the test."
"He can't remember birthdays, but he can sure remember the names of plants," says Lee Davis, Assistant Professor of Developmental Science for the Onward Program and Ron's wife of 42 years. The two actually met in a zoology class at Cornell University, where she was impressed by Ron's ability to roll off the scientific names of vertebrate species.
"I get the feeling that his vast array of knowledge on the Maine environment is a matter of envy among his colleagues. Probably, most wish they had the curiosity to settle into a place and become intimately familiar with everything that surrounds them, like Dr. Davis has," says Adam Crary, a natural resources student who took BIO 205 last fall.
While BIO 205 has its fans, there are students each semester who complain that Davis' class is too demanding, says Mark Anderson, coordinator of the natural resources program, which lists BIO 205 as a degree requirement.
"If it worked for you, it worked beautifully. If it didn't, it was a real struggle," Anderson says of the class. "The class can cause a great sense of stress and fatigue, but generally, when it's over, it's something students look back on fondly with pride and accomplishment. It's like boot camp, I guess," he says. "I've thought I should have T-shirts made for them saying, 'I survived BIO 205.'"
Doug Gelinas, vice provost for Undergraduate Education who has taught biology, has discussed the course with students. "Students over the years would say he's a challenging person, but people who are easy on you aren't always the people you appreciate. Ron never asks people to do things he wouldn't do himself," Gelinas says.
Weekly field trips can involve hiking several miles over difficult terrain, as in climbing Mt. Katahdin, often in chilly fall weather. The course's cornerstone, a required Mt. Katahdin hike in search of tundra 4,600 feet up, is a 10-hour climb, including field lectures, to Hamlin Peak.
An avid hiker and cross-country skier, Davis has climbed Mt. Katahdin almost annually since the mid-1950s.
Every year, a handful of students in his class begs Davis to step up the pace as they climb Katahdin, while others can barely make it up the trail. But the students who inspire Davis are those who struggle and gulp water and fear they'll never last, then stand beside him, panting triumphantly at the peak.
"That challenge is a substantial part of the class. It's a new world for some people," Davis says.
Glanz says he plans to include a Katahdin climb in the course next year. "I actually wish we had more field labs in other classes I've taught. Pushing people can help them to perform, to do the things they've never tried before," he says. Glanz, along with many of Davis' peers, also believes the value of hands-on learning far outweighs its inconvenience.
"The natural world is so complex and variable, it's a little humbling," says Anderson. In an intense field course like Ron's, the students gain a sense of nature's richness that they'd never get from a book.
"I remember sitting (on the ground), just above the tree line. Everyone in the class seemed pretty relaxed and introspective, like we'd all gone through some serious physical changes to reach this magical point," says Frank Joseph, a natural resources major, remembering last year's alpine experience, which was on North Brother Mountain because Katahdin was "too busy."
Although he has visited each field site many times, Davis says he feels the excitement of discovery anew whenever he's out in the field. "I just try to keep moving and let my energy shine through," he says. "It would be very difficult for me to put on an act in class - I'm transparent. Probably some students think I'm being silly, but it may be contagious for others," he says.
Year after year, Davis struggles with students' reluctance to get emotionally involved in the course. He'll beckon students over to a tree so they can note the tiny features that make it a unique and amazing species.
"Most people haven't really gotten down on their knees and looked. It's an eye-opener that there's such a great diversity of organisms out there," Davis says. "The students are going to have to look more closely. They must feel and touch - and even smell."