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New Mexico State University

Extension & Outreach

Endowed chair helps NMSU professor expand opportunities for students
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Endowed chair helps NMSU professor expand opportunities for students.

Thanks to the Jose Fernandez Memorial Chair endowment, Professor Theodore Sammis is taking a back-to-basics approach - simple, hoop-shaped greenhouses - to help agriculture students at New Mexico State University.

In collaboration with John Mexal, assistant department head for Plant and Environmental Sciences, Sammis is using three low-cost, low-tech hoop houses to create opportunities for hands-on learning outside the classroom.

The students were quite enthusiastic about the process, Sammis says. The hoop houses were constructed last fall at the Leyendecker Plant Science Center, near NMSU's main campus in Las Cruces.

Although built of simple materials - mostly PVC pipe and a UV-resistant clear plastic "skin" - the hoop houses create an environment that nurtures plants as well as student learning.