UWyo Magazine Winter Issue Showcases Hands-On Learning Boosting Student Success

The winter issue of UWyo Magazine spotlights the University of Wyoming’s push to boost student success through experiential learning, highlighting courses and research that place students in real-world settings across Albany County and beyond. University leaders and undergraduates describe programs that move education out of lecture halls and into labs, field sites, clinics and community collaborations.

UW President Ed Seidel is quoted as saying, “UW President Ed Seidel emphasizes that education is most powerful when it extends beyond the classroom, giving students opportunit” — a partial statement captured in the issue that frames the magazine’s focus on applied learning. The issue presents classroom projects where students address practical problems — teams working on water pollution and mountain lion encounters are named as concrete examples — and emphasizes team-based problem solving as part of course design.

Readers will find coverage of travel-based learning, service projects, law clinics, student clubs and state-of-the-art labs that provide hands-on practice alongside theory. The magazine cover features two people wearing waders in water, an image that underscores the local emphasis on environmental fieldwork and public-resource stewardship highlighted inside the issue.

One undergraduate profile brings the local impact into sharp relief. Alexina Birkholz, of Sheridan and “now a senior,” is profiled as an undergraduate researcher mentored by Department of Physics and Astronomy Professor Chip Kobulnicky. The issue reports that Birkholz “is double majoring in physics, plus astronomy and astrophysics, with minors in mathematics and honors.” Birkholz’s path to research is personal: “I decided around sixth grade that I wanted to be an astronomer,” she says, and “By the time I started UW, I knew I wanted to either study black holes or exoplanets.” The profile notes that, “Thanks to UW’s incredible undergraduate research opportunities, Birkholz is doing just that as part of the Red Buttes Observatory team, which operates a 0.6-meter telescope 10 minutes southeast of Laramie.”

The issue also touches on data stewardship through a social post excerpt referencing Love Data Week: “From workshops and speakers to hands-on activities, Love Data Week highlights how data is collected, managed, preserved, and reused across” — a fragment captured in the material that points to growing attention to data skills among students and local partners. These capabilities have direct public health and community implications, from improving environmental monitoring to informing wildlife management and emergency response in rural Albany County.

For Laramie and surrounding communities, the magazine’s stories underline how university programs can translate into local benefits: trained graduates who understand regional water and wildlife issues, research that supports local decision-making, and experiential courses that lower barriers to professional pathways for students from places such as Sheridan. The winter issue, published February 02, 2026, offers snapshots of those connections and signals that hands-on learning remains central to UW’s strategy to lift student outcomes and strengthen ties with the community.

As the semester unfolds, Albany County residents can expect to see more students in fieldwork, clinics and labs — a practical pipeline of skills and partnerships that could shape local workforce capacity and public-serving projects in the months ahead.