CLASS WRITES AND PUBLISHED BOOK

Shrunken heads, an unprecedented fossil collection ranging from prehistoric sharks to giant bison, a before-its-time three-dimensional printing lab, and a legacy of fun educational experiences for citizens of Southeast Idaho from preschool to post-retirement. These are just some of the “hidden gems” described in a book written last semester by ICCU Professor of Management Alex Bolinger’s Collaborative Creativity class to celebrate the upcoming 90th anniversary of the Idaho Museum of Natural History (IMNH).

This book-writing class is a partnership with the Idaho State University Honors Program, designed to give students first-hand experience to learn about teamwork and high-level collaboration in an extensive, semester-long creative project. A select team of eight students conducted interviews with current and former IMNH staff and wrote the book in just three months. The book, titled Hidden Gems: Stories of the Idaho Museum of Natural History, details interesting and often unknown items and stories from the IMNH collections in Anthropology, Earth Sciences, and Life Sciences. The book also describes the cutting-edge Idaho Virtual Lab, which uses threedimensional printing to render and reproduce images of fossils for greater access to scientists in other locations and the general public. The opening chapter traces the origins of the IMNH back to the work of Pocatello legend Dr. Minnie Howard and her quest to preserve the locations, stories, and material evidence of Southeast Idaho from the era of the Oregon Trail.

This is the fifth book students in Dr. Bolinger’s classes have written for publication. Unlike the previous four, which were published through Arcadia Publishing, this book is being selfpublished and will be available for purchase in early Spring 2023.

“It was an incredible learning opportunity for our students to write a self-published book,” Dr. Bolinger said. “We did not have the support of a professional editor, so the students had to rely more heavily on each other. One of our students even designed the book cover and all of the graphics inside.”

The book will be sold in the IMNH bookstore on campus and online. For more information about how to get a copy of this book or other books written by Idaho State College of Business students in previous versions of this class, please contact Dr. Bolinger at boliale2@isu.edu.