Class On The Tracks

Some kids spend their entire college careers looking out the windows. Now there is a course in which that's required.

Classes are held on a train giving, a whole new meaning to the term "commuter student." The Early Show correspondent Tracy Smith tells all about it in her Study Hall report.

It's the end of spring semester for these students from the University of North Florida. But instead of going on vacation, they're headed back to class.

Professor Jace Hargis says, "I thought we tend to learn really well, even young people, on field trips."

Professor Hargis' wheels started turning after he took a train trip last year. He says, "One idea I was thinking about students; I thought, 'What a great place to have class.' "

The course is part environmental science, part anthropology, with a little bit of U.S. history and pop culture thrown in, all being taught on an Amtrak train as it makes its way across the country. Think of it as a road trip on the rails, for credit.

The nine-day journey, which began in Jacksonville, Fla., headed north to Washington, D.C., and Chicago before moving through the southwest to Los Angeles. The trip's progress was documented with student photographs.

Along the route, Professor Hargis and his colleague Gordon Rakita led small discussion groups, with the passing landscape providing the ideal backdrop.

Professor Hargis says, "I thought if we could build a context, a background if you will, of our country as we travel through it, that would be what we could learn about."

They used Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" while riding through Chicago, where the classic novel takes place.

But if you're thinking the course is an easy one, think again. Sinclair represents just one of seven books students had to read for this single-credit class, which also required a few sessions in a traditional classroom.

Professor Hargis notes, "This course is not about seeing the major sight-seeing attractions. This is the anti-sight-seeing tour, if you really want to look at it that way. It's purely academic."

And it's not for the claustrophobic, either; two people share each room.

A University of North Florida student, Cary Melvin, says, "Changing is the worst and especially in the top bunk and your head. You have, like, this much space to move."

No strangers on a train here. Still, despite the space, and the workload, they say it is worth the ride.

Student Beth Albright says, "The exchange of ideas and experience combined and contextual learning is amazing. You get so much more out of it."

Ann Lanser even brought her mom, Laura, along. Laura has spent the past 36 years working in the railroad business, and she enrolled at the university just so she could take this trip.

Laura Lanser says, "I really love the trains, but I've never really had the time to just get out and ride. I probably could have just done that, but I want to know what I'm looking at, and this is a way to find out."

In a few days, they'll all end up right back where they started, but Professor Hargis hopes their true journey has just begun.

He says if there's one thing that he wishes these students could take away from this trip, it's curiosity.

He says, "Answers are not that important to me, and on this trip, they're not that important. It's about helping them to foster good questioning."

Whether they're providing questions or answers, finals are this weekend, somewhere between New Orleans and Jacksonville. And while it may look like a week-long party, students are taking this course very seriously, as only half who applied were accepted.