Courses
While Stengl Lost Pines Biological Station does not offer entire courses on site, many field and lab courses use SLP throughout the semester to supplement lectures and tours of natural areas at Brackenridge Field Lab near campus. Overnight trips to SLP allow students to take day and nighttime tours of the property to observe systems and even collect samples for courses that encourage students to build personal specimen collections. Other courses, like the ecology field lab course hosted at BFL, take data that contribute to the long-term station records of plant, insect and bird dynamics. These class trips often inspire students to use SLP as a research space for group and independent research projects that provide valuable field experience. Recent courses that have used SLP include:
- Environmental Science and Sustainability
- Field Biology
- Field Ecology
- Vertebrate Natural History
- Entomology
- Plant systematics
To learn more about courses offered in fieldwork, visit the Biodiversity Center's listing of Biology Field Courses.
Research
SLP serves as an important resource for undergraduate students interested in ecological research. The structured research experiences available at SLP include everything from short-term independent studies to involvement in long-term community studies. Students have performed detailed surveys of the soil, understory, and canopy composition of the property, contributing the maps of the property and informing our management decisions. Students that visit with their field courses can also choose SLP as the site for their own research projects. These projects have considered subjects ranging from the effects on invasive grasses on native grass communities to understanding the nest tree preferences of SLP’s five species of woodpeckers. Undergraduate research at SLP can lead to publications or even inspire long-term projects that will help us understand and preserve the Lost Pines community. If you are a student interested in using SLP's facilities for a research project, please see our Student Research Application and our User Guidelines.