REU Site: Research Experiences in Marine Organism Health: Resilience and Response to Environmental Change

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This REU Site award to the College of Charleston will support the training of 10 students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2014-2016. Student research training will be done at the Grice Marine Laboratory, located in Charleston, SC. This award is supported by both the Directorates for Biological Sciences (Division of Biological Infrastructure) and Geosciences (Division of Ocean Sciences). The program focuses on the theme of marine organism health, which addresses how organisms, populations, communities, and ecosystems respond to natural or anthropogenic changes in oceanic and estuarine environments. Student projects involve issues on climate change, coastal development, natural disasters, species introductions and pollution -- conditions that are creating special challenges to organisms because of more rapid changes in variables like temperature, pH, salinity, oxygen level, and presence of harmful pharmaceuticals, metals and other pollutants. In addition to being engaged in full-time research in the lab or field, students will participate in seminars, field trips, and workshops on topics like the responsible conduct of research, communication with professional and public audiences, and the graduate school application process. Students from schools with limited research opportunities and those from underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply. Participants are selected based on potential benefits to the student's career, on the diversity that each student contributes to the intern group, and on evidence of strong potential for academic and personal achievement. REU students will learn how research is conducted and many will present the results of their work at scientific conferences. REU students will be housed in the dormitory of the Grice Marine Laboratory at the Fort Johnson Marine Resources Center. The program will use the REU common assessment tool (Student Assessment of Learning Gains) and its own instrument to assess student gains in the program, and will continue to assess participant interest in science and math disciplines, their career paths, and the lasting influences of the research experience. Students are required to be tracked after the program and must respond to an automatic email sent via the NSF reporting system. More information is available by visiting http://reu.cofc.edu, or by contacting the PI (Dr. Robert Podolsky at podolskyr@cofc.edu).