Dr. Cline was looking for a way to revitalize the class project in her environmental microbiology course, an upper-division college class that introduces students to general microbiology in the first 5 weeks and then explores environmental applications of microbiology. Dr. Elliott was looking for volunteers to participate in a community stream monitoring project. Cline was intrigued by service learning as a way to engage students and widen their focus to the world outside the classroom, but hesitant to sacrifice the time they could otherwise devote to studying fundamental concepts. And furthermore, could students who had only studied microbes for weeks give back to their community in a meaningful way? The answer proved to be yes – as long as the project was carefully designed.

Phytophthora ramorum Werres, De Cock & Man in’t Veld 2001 is an invasive pathogenic oomycete that attacks a wide range of plants (Figure 1;...

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