REU: Stable Isotopic Applications to Great Plains Ecology, Paleoecology, Archeology, and Physiology

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This award provides funds to continue REU support for another year in the Department of Biology at Augustana College. The program will support undergraduate participation in a focused research program which integrates the research activities of ten investigators from Augustana College (6), Univ. Neb. (1), The Nature Conservancy (1), S.D. State Univ. (1), and Black Hills State Univ. (1). The projects are integrated at the scientific level because of the common interests in prairie ecology and paleoecology, and because each project benefits from the applications of the stable isotopes of C and N to the methodology. A coherent group and a unique methodology will be used to continue ecological and archeological reconstructions in a geographic area of rich ecological resources and to encompass growing interest in diets and physiology. The REU students will be active participants as Augustana College hosts the International Conference. on Bone Modifications in 1993. Four high school teachers will participate, funded in total by the S. Dakota-NSF State Systemic Initiative. Ten students (half women, half from off-campus) will study field and laboratory problems with a common focus. They will be expected to gain some mastery of the theoretical basis for their study as well as the experimental design and ultimate interpretation. Weekly seminars and workshops will review each project's theoretical basis and research design; enhance the students' library, laboratory, data handling, and scientific writing skills; and broaden their understanding of the related projects. The ten-week summer program and academic year independent study will culminate in an REU Symposium in which each student will present his/her results and conclusions and help develop the hypotheses for next summer's projects. Outstanding women will be selected again as seminar speakers and to serve as role models. Twenty high schools will be invited to select an outstanding woman student to attend the REU Symposium and return for one day in summer. A major ethics conference will be hosted and a report disseminated dealing with reburial of museum specimens and animal research.