African sunset, one of the common backgrounds to our classes.
By Jacob Knudson – Saint John’s University
The average American student spends hours upon hours sitting at small desks listening to lectures in hopes of earning college credit. With Round River, however, the classroom takes on a new style seen nowhere else in the world. Here in Botswana our classes can vary from sitting around a campfire with the Milky Way above, explaining topics in the heat of the day or under a tarp in the pouring rain discussing the academic papers read a few hours before.
Arguably the best part about our outdoor classrooms are the experiences that come with them. No two lectures are the same and through personal experience, you’ll never know what might happen. From impromptu rain storms driving us back into our tents until we can resume class, to elephants that walk a mere 50 meters away which are sure to distract everyone from academic topics like resource partitioning amongst herbivores.
One of my favorite classroom experiences were the raiding Vervet monkeys which everyone had to chase away, especially from our food tent which was stocked with fresh fruits and vegetables. Experiences like these create an amazing environment from which we learn and culminate into something we proudly like to call our classroom.