Spring 2026 Course Search

The Herbarium: Research, Art & Botany — BIO4441.01

Instructor: Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie
Days & Time: TU,FR 2:10pm-4:00pm
Credits: 4

An herbarium is a museum of pressed plants, a record of flora following a system that dates back to the 16th century. Large herbaria at institutions like D.C.’s Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Chicago’s Field Museum, Cambridge’s Harvard University, and London’s Kew Gardens contain millions of specimens, collected from around the world. But, most herbaria are small herbaria, with less than 10,000 specimens.

Reading and Knitting the Forested Landscape — BIO2242.01

Instructor: Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie
Days & Time: MO,TH 1:40pm-3:30pm
Credits: 4

Why would a forest ecology course include an assignment to knit a wool hat? In this class we will explore the lasting impact of sheep on the Vermont landscape, from the earliest settler-colonizers through today’s small batch fiber mills and second growth forests studded with stone walls. Sheep, and especially a 19th century boom in merino sheep, radically altered Vermont’s forests and inspired early writing on conservation and sustainable land management.