Iowa Lakeside Laboratory is a field station of Iowa's state universities. It has provided summer classes and research opportunities to college students since 1909. As a Regents Resource Center, Lakeside also offers programs in lifelong learning for the people of northwest Iowa. The Friends of Lakeside Lab, its non-profit partner, provides valued support.

Although education is Lakeside's primary function, it also serves as a nature preserve and historic district. The north part of campus is being restored to prairie, while other areas are wooded. The Lab has 12 structures on the National Register of Historic Places, including five stone classrooms built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The grounds are open during daylight hours, and guests are welcome.

UI Press Publishes Lakeside Laboratory Book Imagine a place dedicated to the long-term study of nature in nature, a permanent biological field station, a teaching and research laboratory that promotes complete immersion in the natural world. Lakeside Laboratory, founded on the shore of Lake Okoboji in northwestern Iowa in 1909, is just such a place. In this remarkable and insightful book, Michael Lannoo sets the story of Lakeside Lab within the larger story of the primacy of fieldwork, the emergence of conservation biology, and the ability of field stations to address such growing problems as pollution, disease, habitat loss, invasive species, and climate change. Read more.....