The new Sky is the Limit learning community, designed for College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) Open Option students interested in exploring their interests in science will debut in the fall semester.  An interdisciplinary leadership team consisting of GDCB Professor Clark Coffman; Dr. Jenifer Saldanha, an HHMI postdoctoral fellow and former MCDB graduate student in GDCB; faculty from Geological and Atmospheric Sciences (GE-AT), Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology (EEOB), and Landscape Architecture; Jane Jacobson from LAS; graduate student coordinators from Plant Pathology and Kinesiology; and undergraduate peer mentors are designing an engaging, informative, and fun-filled set of freshman experiences for the participants in this learning community.

The main goals of The Sky is the Limit are to build a community of students and faculty who can explore their shared scientific interests while helping Open Option students identify career paths they may not have known were possible.  Students in The Sky is the Limit choose from four different teams that focus on environmental issues (Save Planet Earth), health-care related interests (Helping People: The Health Career Spectrum), climate change (Seeking Solutions to the Challenges of Climate Change), and exploration of multidisciplinary problem solving (Engaging Multidisciplinary Approaches to Today’s Problems).

This program is supported in part by a grant to Iowa State University from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute through the Science Education Program and with funding provided by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.