"I better get an 'A' for this, Smeds," Holly Novotny said as she wiggled her fingers into a pair of blue rubber gloves.

    Novotny, a student at Roseau High School, was speaking to her Biology II teacher, Darrin "Smeds" Smedsmo. Novotny was one of 12 juniors and seniors that Smedsmo brought to the University of Minnesota, Crookston (UMC) Agricultural Science Outreach Lab on Friday for a hands-on lesson in Artificial Insemination (AI). UMC juniors and seniors in Dr. Harouna Maiga's AI class conduct the outreach labs each semester for high school students from across the region. Friday's visit marked the third year that Smedsmo has brought students to the University Teaching and Outreach Center (UTOC) for a one-of-a-kind look at AI in cattle and pigs.

    The Roseau students didn't exactly jump toward the box of blue rubber gloves placed before them. But, considering that they were standing before the entire reproductive tracts of various deceased cattle and pigs, their trepidation was at least slightly understandable.

    "We've dissected frogs and worms and stuff, but we've never seen anything like this," said Ross Swenson, adding a "wow" under his breath. Swenson works on his grandfather's dairy farm every summer, so he was particularly interested in the sights and sounds that the outreach lab had to offer.

    Novotny was the first to don a pair of gloves, and her peers quickly followed, without being assured a guaranteed "A" grade from their teacher for doing so, either.

PowerPoint first

     The outreach labs don't actually begin in the lab. The Roseau students' first stop was a classroom, where Dustin Hollermann and Candace Daniels, students in Maiga's AI class, led the group through a PowerPoint presentation describing the basics of AI and how it enhances cattle, swine and poultry reproduction. The students learned that AI dates back to the 15th century, when dogs and then cattle were artificially inseminated in Europe. In the 1930s, AI debuted in the United States. Today, it is most utilized in chickens, cows and pigs, not to mention human beings. Of AI's many benefits, poultry, cattle and swine producers can assure high-quality offspring by using sperm derived from top-notch males. Gaining access to a top-quality bull would be too expensive for many livestock producers, not to mention dangerous, considering how erratically bulls can behave at breeding time.

    "But you can buy semen from a good bull for $20, and a single collection can breed 300 cows," Maiga explained to the group. "It makes it possible for the smaller dairies to compete with the bigger guys." Frozen sperm can be shipped across the world, and can be stored cryogenically (in super-cold temperatures) for 50 years, he added, and likely longer.

    With that newfound knowledge fresh in their minds, the Roseau students walked across the hall to the lab, where more of Maiga's students waited to show them, literally, how to artificially inseminate a cow.

    Hollermann gave the Roseau contingent a once-through on the tools and equipment necessarily to artificially inseminate an animal, including a tank filled with liquid nitrogen used to store frozen sperm. To appropriately demonstrate how cold minus-320 F is, Hollermann dipped a rubber tube in the liquid nitrogen for a couple seconds, and then proceeded to shatter it on a lab table.

    Moments later, the Roseau students found themselves broken into two groups. While UMC students Staci Slykerman, Sara Ehlers and Jamie Brause used red dye to show one group how to artificially inseminate a cow, the other group got an up close and personal look at a pig's reproductive tract, as well as pig embryos and fetuses at various stages of development. Ardell Knudsvig coordinated activities with the second group; the retired Crookston High School biology teacher now helps UMC's Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources coordinate the outreach labs.

    Slykerman and Brause wore the same gloves as the Roseau students when they practiced their technique on the reproductive tract spread out on the lab table. Had it been a live cow on an actual farm, they would have worn gloves that spanned the entire length of their arms, "Because that's how far you have to go in," Slykerman said, amid groans from the high school students.

    But, soon, curiosity got the best of the Roseau students, and they were soon touching every piece of flesh they could get their hands on.

    "That's the best part, seeing the students totally grossed out at the beginning, but then touching the actual repro tract by the end of the session," Slykerman said. "I just think they really get something extra out of learning from their peers."

    Their last activity involved viewing just-thawed samples of deformed sperm under the microscope. In order to better focus on the white cells, the Roseau students were asked to place one of their hairs on the slide as a reference point. This eventually led to some rather strange remarks.

    "Are they supposed to swim into my hair?" one Roseau student shrieked.

Mutual benefit

     By teaching the Roseau students in the lab, Maiga's students know that they're benefiting as much as their younger peers. That reciprocal benefit is at the heart of the mission of UMC's Office of Service Learning, which enthusiastically supports the outreach labs. Service Learning is all about providing real-life, hands-on learning opportunities that break the traditional classroom mold, but maintain a direct tie to the curriculum. Student learning is enhanced and the community - in this case, the Roseau students - benefit as well.

    That concept wasn't lost on any of the students who participated in Friday's outreach lab.

    "This Service Learning project is a great way to teach students how to do something themselves and let us experience it firsthand as well," Ehlers said. "I learn so much more when I get to do something myself instead of just reading or listening to the steps and procedure."

    "They're doing a good job," Swenson said of the UMC students. "I'm learning a lot of new things and seeing some pretty weird stuff; I'll never look at one of my grandpa's bulls the same way again."

    Maybe he'll never look at traditional learning methods the same way again, either.