Wartburg professor shares love of exotic animals with Charles City Public Library patrons

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Dr. Michael Bechtel, an associate professor of science education at Wartburg College in Waverly, has been collecting a growing menagerie of reptiles and other animals since he himself was a student at Wartburg working on his bachelor’s degree in the early 1990s.

That collection has grown as he advanced through a masters degree and his doctorate, and through teaching at elementary and secondary schools and now at the college level. One of his interests has been on breeding exotic animals, including those typically difficult to breed in captivity.

He has also focused on using animals to teach, and helping other schools set up programs with animals in the classroom. Bechtel visits schools, libraries and other gatherings to instruct and inspire.

Bechtel brought a number of his “Wartburg Lizards” to a program Wednesday afternoon at the Charles City Public Library, where almost 100 kids, parents and others gathered to see and hear about – and frequently touch – an assortment of reptiles that included a tortoise named Big Bertha and an assortment of snakes.

“There are many different types of learning. One of them is naturalistic. That’s the way I learn,” Bechtel said in an article posted on the Wartburg website. “It wraps kids in.”

He said, “My master’s project was on animals in the classroom. I found that autistic students wouldn’t speak, but once the animals were involved – especially the bearded dragon – it wasn’t about them and they would talk to their peers,” he said.