Matt Gunderson is spending his Spring Break with the fruit flies from his biology class.

“I had a down payment to my travel agent and I had to back out a couple weeks ago,” said Gunderson, a senior biology major.

Biology 308 Genetics features a lab in which students study, raise and even breed fruit flies. Gunderson said he finds taking care of the flies inconvenient; he has a total of about 240 flies between his two experiments. Students pack coolers to transport flies to and from class.

According to Anni Moore, one of the class’ teaching assistants, the fruit flies must be tended to about every six to 10 hours depending on the temperature at which the flies are stored.

Moore said that although working with the fruit flies can be tedious, it serves a very important purpose for students.

“They get the hands-on experience of how real experiments are done; they have to work with real living organisms,” Moore said.

Rick Johns, the class instructor, said that there are several goals of the class.

“It’s about teaching students to handle data in an analytical and mathematical fashion rather than regurgitating facts,” Johns said. “Mostly it’s based on transmitting traits from parent to child.”

Johns said he has had students object to taking care of fruit flies, and even had one student lose his flies overboard at spring break in Mexico.

Moore said students have responsibilities to keep the flies alive, conduct experiments and be able to produce a scientific write up. The class combines elements of biology, math and statistics and chemistry.

Students discuss elements such as phenotypes, genotypes and gametes. In addition, students must also be able to identify what traits flies will inherit based on complex Punnett squares.

Although the class can be difficult, junior biology major Angela Tadley believes people portray the class unfairly.

“People really like to scare you with the nature of the class,” Tadley said. “It’s really not that horrible. I have fun with my labmates. It’s interesting seeing how things are passed from generation to generation.”