The biology department purchased a 15-passenger bus with donations to the UW-Eau Claire Foundation.

The $22,500 bus was bought last spring with a combination of donations from the L.E. Phillips Family Foundation and Ken Vance Motors along with money from the Foundation’s Biology Advancement Fund. The fund is supported by alumni and friends of the biology department.

The 2-year-old bus, which formerly was used to bus elementary school children, is used for the various biology field trips for classes such as ornithology, conservation biology, botany and ecology, said Darwin Wittrock, the interim biology department chair.

Wittrock stressed the importance of having a bus to transport students on field trips.

“Without the bus, we wouldn’t be able to teach field courses effectively,” Wittrock said.

During the spring and early fall, he said the bus is used nearly every day for field trips to places such as area ponds, creeks and lakes.

Wittrock said the bus also has been used to bring students to places as far as the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley, Minn., and the Como Park conservatory in St. Paul, Minn. He said taking field trips allow students to observe things in their natural environment.

He said because the bus only holds 15 people, classes can only have 14 people. Wittrock said the smaller class sizes lead to good interactions between instructors and students.

Instructors also have to get certified to drive the bus in order to take the class on the field trip.