Learning about plants extends beyond the four walls of Dr. Katherine Waselkov’s classroom at Fresno State and into the Central Valley foothills, vernal pools and deserts. 

In the spring, her biology students take the knowledge they’ve learned in her plant taxonomy class to the field, where they collect flowering plants to bring back to the lab for dissection and identification before they press, categorize and digitize them for inclusion in the Fresno State Herbarium.

“What’s special about this area is the access to a bunch of different botanical ecosystems,” said Waselkov, who is from the eastern United States. “You can take students on so many different field trips that go to different environments, and you can follow the spring as the flowers are opening at increasing elevations up the mountains.”