NATCHEZ — During their first year of high school, biology students at Trinity Episcopal Day School are getting a taste of what many first-year college students are experiencing.

Trinity and Alcorn State University teamed up this year to offer a collaborative study Biology I program to the 23 ninth-grade biology students.

Twice a week students sit through lectures led by members of Alcorn’s biology department, with follow-up hands-on lab activities led by Trinity biology teacher Julie Timm.

Macrobiologist Leroy Johnson, microbiologist Darryl Grannell and zoologist Keith McGee are representing Alcorn and acclimating Timm’s students to college expectations.

“The interaction between the professors and the students is priceless,” Timm said.

Timm said during lectures students are told to not focus on taking many notes — instead, they’re encouraged to listen and comprehend the ideas being introduced in the lectures and apply the ideas to their classwork.

Randa Morace and lab partner, Lauren O’Quinn, said the experience of learning from college professors is a new concept to the school and one that is being tested on Trinity students.

“If it works here, they’re going to put it in all the other private schools in the county,” O’Quinn said.

Morace said the idea of being enrolled in a course with college-level lectures scared her at first, but since meeting with professors, she’s getting used to it.

“I thought it was going to be really hard, but it’s not as hard as I thought,” Morace said. “I’m not so scared of college any more, I guess.”

Morace’s classmate, Landon Cox, said he, too, was a little apprehensive entering into his first year of high school, especially with a class centering on college biology lectures.

“I was nervous coming into my freshman year,” Cox said. “But now we’ve had more experience with (college-like classes) so it should make college easier on us.”

Cox said the challenges presented with the course’s lectures and labs were a nice change from what he has experienced in past classes.

“(This class) is more interesting than just doing worksheets,” Cox said.

Ashley Laughlin said the lab work was her favorite part of the course because it added a different dimension to the class.

“It’s a fun hands-on experience that we get to do,” she said.

Preston Williams said compared to past classes he’d taken, the collaborative biology course is his favorite setup because of the visiting professors’ expertise.

“I like it better because they answer your questions better than the teachers do,” Williams said.