Video: Ditching class at Adams State University
June 11, 2025
Video: Meet Natrielle Shorty and Matthew Reno, biology majors at Adams State University, a public institution that turns its students loose in southern Colorado’s high country to do on-site research. As one administrator puts it: “The mountain ranges are our labs.” And that’s true even for first-year students such as Shorty, who spent hours wading in mountain streams with her freshmen classmates, collecting and studying macroinvertebrates. Reno, a third-year student, sees huge value in the field trips. “It makes the in-class work more meaningful,” he said. “It’s one thing to take notes, but applying research to a lesson made me realize, ‘Oh, there’s a reason we’re learning this!’”