(Radio Iowa) – A nearly 150-acre campus centered around a laboratory on the shore of West Okoboji Lake gives students from the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa hands-on, in the field research experience. Lakeside Lab Executive Director Mary Skopec says there are opportunities for younger students, too, and about a quarter of the lab’s budget comes from private donations made to the Friends of Lakeside Lab organization.
She says every year, as many as 25-hundred students from K-12 schools in northwest Iowa visit the lab, plus there’s a summer program funded with private donations that provides scholarships to interns.
Friends of Lakeside Laboratory will be hosting their annual summer fundraiser Sunday night in the dining hall on the campus in Milford. Individual tickets are 150-dollars each. The Lakeside Laboratory was established 117 years ago by a University of Iowa professor and was originally owned by a private company. It was turned over to the state of Iowa in 1936.
