October 28, 2005

For the Classroom, Inspiration From All Over

Compiled by SUSANNAH TULLY

We asked professors to tell us how they incorporate their hobbies and pastimes, and the lessons learned from them, into their teaching. Below, they reveal how puppeteering, caving, singing, and even playing poker work in their classes.

Rick Wiedenmann, assistant professor of biology at New Mexico State University at Carlsbad (a two-year extension campus):

I have taken up caving as a hobby, spending considerable time climbing and crawling through some of the many wild caves of