Benilde-St. Margaret’s offers a wide variety of prestigious elective courses, but in my opinion none of them hold a candle to John Porisch’s Ecology course.
He does a great job taking what we’re learning about and making it a hands-on experience. He doesn’t just read from a book, but takes his classes outside and on field trips to observe and ask questions about Minnesota’s wildlife. “I think it provides an option for people that’s different from the rest, because we’re outside a lot. We’re trying to learn more about the outdoors rather than the indoors and the textbook type materials,” Ecology teacher John Porisch said.
Ecology is the study of relationships between organisms and their environment. In other words, it’s the study of nature. “We study Minnesota’s natural resources. Topics include rivers, streams, lakes, forests, soils, wetlands, And we also do units within those like birdwatching, learning some plant identification, fish identification, we do some archery outside. We do a unit on conservation groups of the United States of America,” Porisch said.
It’s a great course for anyone that enjoys the outdoors, and people who love being hands on with nature
— Davis Puncochar
This is a great course for those interested in nature. Unfortunately, up until the 2023-2024 school year, Ecology was limited to just a senior only elective, restricting the underclassmen’s opportunity to explore nature and all the gifts it has to offer. Thankfully, it was newly made available for all students in grades 10 through 12, allowing more kids the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors, and to learn about wildlife in our state. “It’s a great course for anyone that enjoys the outdoors, and people who love being hands on with nature,” senior Davis Puncochar said.
Ecology can help open a lot of career paths in the agriculture industry. Practically any job involving nature is going to require mastery in ecology. This is why dipping your toes into ecology in high school is a great idea if you have plans to go into one of those types of jobs. “There’s a lot of jobs in natural resource management, a lot of forestry jobs in our state, thinking on the lines of like the Pollution Control Agency and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Nonprofits like Hennepin County RiverWatch. [Or maybe if you want to go into] environmental law, you’re going to have a little bit more background with the actual science part of things,” Porisch said.
In addition, it also offers a bunch of life skills. Ecology helps teach the ins and outs of nature. It shows us how to appreciate the natural world. “Life skills [you take away] from this class … are going to be things like appreciating what’s around you, valuing what’s around you, trying to make what’s around you sustainable so that our kids and grandkids can enjoy the natural resources around us,” Porisch said.