The Book of Nature: Teaching Scholarly and Popular Science Writing through Field Research in Mycology

FAIN: AKA-279417-21

Alcorn State University (Lorman, MS 39096-7510)
Logan Carrol Wiedenfeld (Project Director: September 2020 to present)

A one-year planning grant to develop a science writing curriculum.

This project will plan a curriculum in which the instruction of science writing, both popular and scholarly, is integrated organically into a field mycology and myco-cultivation courses. With collaboration from the Departments of English, Biology, and Agriculture and Applied Sciences, the planning committee will fashion at least two courses, one in biology and one in agriculture and applied sciences, that employ experiential learning, including the collection of specimens in the field and the cataloguing of these specimens in a student-led herbarium, in order to better prepare students to be effective and versatile writers in their fields. The final project of these courses would involve contributions to an Alcorn-affiliated and student-led website that offers amateur-oriented descriptions of the fungi of western Mississippi and easy-to-follow instructions on how to cultivate safe edible mushrooms that grow wild in western Mississippi.

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