ADvanced RLE Courses
Open to 2nd semester freshmen through seniors!
Sign-up for these courses through MaineStreet during general enrollment.
If you have questions, please contact the course faculty member.
Open to students in any major
Spreading Financial Literacy
BUA 290:0005 – Promoting Financial Literacy
Matthew Skaves | Maine Business School
Credits Earned:
3
Participants:
Open to all majors (BUA 110 or BUA 210 prerequisites)
Credits Earned: 3
Participants: Open to all majors (BUA 110 or BUA 210 prerequisites)
In this class, students will gain important workforce skills, specifically communication and presentation skills, as they become “experts” in a key area of personal finance and learn how to teach that information to others. Students will deepen their understanding of advanced financial literacy topics, being able to interrelate such topics and make inferences about how to manage personal finances to support financial well-being.
To support these outcomes, students will research topics in personal finance and study ways in which the content is taught while learning about how Generation Z and Alpha understand personal finance. Students will then develop a proposal for how to share personal finance topics and have the opportunity to practice teaching the content to members of these generations in Maine.
Develop Skills for Economic Research
ECO 266:0001 – Principles of Economic Data
Todd Gabe | School of Economics
Credits Earned
3
Participants:
Open to all majors
Credits Earned: 3
Participants: Open to all majors
An introduction to the economic approach to analyzing data and conducting quantitative research. Students will formulate research questions, collect and analyze data, and interpret the results of their analysis. Research projects will investigate traditional economic topics (e.g., wages, output) using government statistics, as well as questions from “everyday life” using data that’s all around us.
Get Creative with Science Education
RLE 250.0002 – Creative Expressions of Science
Holly White | Ecology & Environmental Sciences, Bridie McGreavy | Department of Communication and Journalism
Credits Earned:
1
Participants:
Open to all majors
Fall credits: 1
Participants: Open to all majors
This RLE is for any student interested in exploring science communication through artistic and creative expression. We will engage with multiple outlets for science communication including botanical drawing, creative writing, social media, and digital storytelling. Each topic will be paired with dedicated time for hands-on creation and exploration, allowing students to apply what they have learned to scientific topics of their choosing. This interdisciplinary course is open to all majors as the skills we learn will be applicable to a wide range of disciplines and career paths.
Consulting in Coffee
MGT 290:0001 – Handcrafted Beverages Industry
Buffie McCue-Quinn | Maine Business School
Credits Earned:
3
Participants:
Open to all majors
Credits Earned: 1
Participants: Open to all majors
In collaboration with Aroma Joe’s, this course provides students with a consulting-style experience, focusing on the complexities of the coffee industry. Over 15 weeks, students will engage in research, data collection, leadership development, and teamwork to analyze key operational and strategic challenges within the company. Students will work in project-based teams to explore various aspects of the business—including supply chain management, customer experience, marketing strategies, financial sustainability, and operational efficiency.
This course offers an experiential learning opportunity, equipping students with critical professional skills such as leadership, analytical problem-solving, stakeholder engagement, and strategic communication. Through direct interactions with industry professionals across different functional areas, students will gain an in-depth understanding of the coffee business and its broader economic and consumer landscape.
By the end of the semester, students will present three well researched and actionable recommendations to Aroma Joe’s senior leadership team, honing their corporate communication and strategic decision-making abilities. This course mirrors the structure of an internship, offering real-world experience in a cohort-based setting, with skills transferable to industries beyond coffee and food service
Create and Observe Atomic Layers
RLE 250:0001 – Create and Observe Atomic Layers
Dinh Loc Duong | Department of Physics and Astronomy, FIRST, Henry Carfagno | FIRST, CORE
Credits Earned:
1
Participants:
Open to all majors
Credits Earned: 1
Participants: Open to all majors
In this course, students will be introduced to a simple method to create atomic-thickness two- dimensional materials, the approach leading to the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics, using UMaine’s state-of-the-art cleanroom and microscopy facilities. After training, students will create graphene layers, image their samples, and statistically determine the number of atomic layers fabricated.
Understanding and Constructing Equity
WGS 206:0001 – Investigating Equity
Mary PlymaleLarlee | Department of English
Credits Earned:
3
Participants:
Open to all majors
Credits Earned: 3
Participants: Open to all majors
Through this highly collaborative and participatory course, students will build a robust understanding of equity (as opposed to equality) through work with images, TedTalks, podcasts, documentaries, a textbook, and a novel. Throughout the term students are invited to compose and present multimodal projects that represent and create equity in their own lived experiences.
Open to students with specific majors
Experience preK-12 classes and rehearsals in local schools
MUE 210:0001 – Introduction to Music Education
Rebecca DeWan | Division of Music
Credits Earned:
3
Participants:
Music Education majors only
Credits Earned: 3
Participants: Music Education majors only
Discover Human Impacts on Birds
WLE 490: 0001 – Birds in the Anthropocene
Erik Blomberg | Wildlife Ecology
Credits Earned:
1
Participants:
Biology, Botany, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Zoology, Wildlife, Marine Science, Earth and Climate Sciences, Forestry, and Parks, Recreation and Tourism majors only
Credits Earned: 1
Participants: Biology, Botany, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Zoology, Wildlife, Marine Science, Earth and Climate Sciences, Forestry, and Parks, Recreation and Tourism majors only
Birds in the Anthropocene introduces students to the variety of pressures humans exert on birds and how we use research to understand the numerous ways birds respond. Students will learn about the wide variety of datasets and data types that are available to ornithologists, and how these various data sources can be used to answer research questions. Students will be empowered to follow their curiosity to a bird-focused research topic, culminating in a well-developed research question and a synthesis of the scientific literature relevant to their question.
Exploring Acadia’s Environment
EES 217:0870 – Acadia Field Study
Katharine Ruskin | Ecology and Environmental Sciences
Credits Earned:
1
Participants:
Ecology and Environmental Sciences Majors only
Credits Earned: 1
Participants: Ecology and Environmental Sciences Majors only
Finding Cures for Viral Diseases
BMB 475: 0001 – Virus-Host Cell Interactions Discovery Laboratory
Melissa Maginnis | Molecular and Biomedical Sciences
Credits Earned:
3
Participants:
Molecular and Biomedical Sciences, Biochemistry, and Microbiology majors only (BMB 305, BMB 360, and permission prerequisites)
Credits Earned: 3
Participants: Molecular and Biomedical Sciences, Biochemistry, and Microbiology majors only (BMB 305, BMB 360, and permission prerequisites)
This inquiry-based laboratory course gives students an in depth understanding of virus-host cell interactions through the application of concepts and essential techniques in cell culture, virology, and immunology. Students will develop novel research projects and perform experiments to answer key questions related to the molecular and cellular basis of viral infection and identify methods to treat human polyomavirus-induced diseases.
Identifying the Fungi of Maine
BIO 432:0001 – Biology of Fungi: Identifying the Fungal Diversity of Maine
Peter Avis | School of Biology and Ecology
Credits Earned:
4
Participants:
Life Science majors only (Biology, Botany, Forestry, Wildlife, BMB)
Credits Earned: 4
Participants: Life Science majors only (Biology, Botany, Forestry, Wildlife, BMB)
Maine is home to thousands of species of fungi. Knowing how to identify these diverse and cryptic creatures is the focus of this course’s lab. This module will combine three approaches – traditional morphological approaches, a crowd-sourced/AI approach and a molecular biology approach (i.e. DNA barcoding) to infer the biological identities of fungal collections students make during the semester.
Learning How to Catalog Biodiversity
BIO 245:4001 – Ecology Community Sampling
Eric H. Jones | Integrative and Marine Sciences
Credits Earned:
4
Participants:
Integrative Biology and Marine Biology Majors only
Credits Earned: 4
Participants: Integrative Biology and Marine Biology Majors only
This course provides the skills necessary to catalog and report biodiversity for conservation purposes. You will work with our partners at the Downeast Coastal Conservancy on a natural resource inventory of one of their conservation properties. In this process you will learn how to collect, identify and catalog plant specimens that help us determine the nature of the ecological communities found at the research site.
Supported by a generous grant from the Harold Alfond Foundation as part of UMS TRANSFORMS.