As Ashley Sanders walked through the ghost town, she felt foreign and strange. Yet she was only a few hours away from home.

Sanders, a BYU student from Salt Lake City, is one of 19 students who are on a study abroad - in Utah. She related her experience in Ophir, a small town in Tooele County.

Ophir used to be a mining community in western Utah, until people moved away and left it desolate. However, recently people have been moving back in and starting to reconstruct the town.

John Benion, an English professor; Riley Nelson, a biology professor; Brian Cannon, a history professor; and Brian Hill, a recreation management youth leadership professor, organized the four-week program. The Integrated Natural History of Utah program gives the students "experimental learning."

"Because this program is so odd, it had to be organized through the Study Abroad Office," Nelson said.

The group of students and professors will study four streams in Utah: Vernon Creek, Provo River, Bear River and Escalante River.

"We're exploring how water affects the living things," Nelson said, "including humans that live along their banks."

According to Nelson the 12-credit course will help students learn in the environment.

"The goal of the program is to create Christian scholars who can think in an interdisciplinary way," said Ari Menon, a geography student from Salt Lake City.

Menon said at the conclusion of the program, success would mean the students will be able to respect disciplines other than their own, and based on their new understanding, provide service to others.

"I think there's a general consensus in this first week that it [the program] has been successful," Menon said. "There has been a feeling of love among each other and a continuing excitement for the rest of the program."

Both students and professors enjoyed the time they had to work, play, bike, hike, write and talk together.

"There are more interesting ways to learn than reading a book or staying in a classroom," Sanders said. "While you're hiking, you can have a two-hour conversation with a professor about anything you want to know about."

Menon's favorite moments were similar to Sanders' - those spent with other students and professors and those involving opportunities to speak more openly with other students without fearing.

This was the first time BYU created such a program. The professors are hoping to hold the program every other year.

The BYU Honor Program sponsored the Natural History of Utah program the, but the Study Abroad Office managed it.

Any student interested in participating in the program should visit the Study Abroad Office's Web site at studyabroad.byu.edu.

Copyright Brigham Young University 14 May 2008