From exploratory labs, to field trips to museums and local landscapes, most of the classes I have taken at Harvard have included some sort of hands-on activity that has aided in my learning and understanding of the material.

My favorite experiences have been in my archaeology and biology courses (one of the reasons I now concentrate in Archaeology and am getting a secondary in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology).

Here are a few highlights from my favorite hands on learning experiences.

• In my Foundations of Biological Diversity course we took a few field trips to explore local biological diversity. We went to the Harvard Forrest one weekend, and the Boston Harbor Islands another.

  

  

   

• In my Osteoarchaeology class we get to articulate real bones from archaeological sites to help us understand how to conduct zooarchaeological studies. Sometimes my friends an I feel like we are in an episode of the TV show Bones.

• In my Evolutionary Human Anatomy course we have been doing dissections on sheep brains and cow hearts and lungs to help us better understand the mammalian anatomy of some of our most important organs.

  

Inflating a cow lung in lab was one of the weirdest hands on experiences I've had at Harvard, but being able to see how real lungs work in real life was such as valuable learning experience.