REU Site: Achieving Heightened Goals: Undergraduate Research in Ecology at the Mountain Research Station

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This REU Site award to the Mountain Research Station, University of Colorado, located in Nederland, CO, will support the training of 9 students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2015-2017. Student projects will focus on aspects of mountain ecology, including biodiversity, ecosystem function, mammal foraging, and animal behavior, taking advantage of numerous sponsored long-term research programs at field sites on Niwot Ridge and the surrounding Front Range of the Colorado Rockies. Mentors are faculty from the Universities of Colorado and Wisconsin, who will select the student applicants who will work with them. During the program students participate in weekly meetings providing training in science communication and ethics in science, and information on the merits of graduate school and how students can find and facilitate acceptance into specific graduate programs. Several formal presentations will be given by students describing their projects during the program. Students will participate in mentoring talented high school students on research projects near the end of the program. Recruitment will focus on students from groups underrepresented in academic ecology and on schools with limited research opportunities.It is anticipated that a total of 27 students, primarily from schools with limited research opportunities, will be trained in the program. Students will learn how research is conducted and many will present the results of their work at scientific conferences. Students will also help instill their enthusiasm for research in high school students participating in a course at the field station.A common web-based assessment tool used by all REU programs funded by the Division of Biological Infrastructure (Directorate for Biological Sciences) will be used to determine the effectiveness of the training program. 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://www.colorado.edu/eeb/EEBprojects/reu, or by contacting the PI (Dr. Bill Bowman at william.bowman@colorado.edu) or the co-PI (Dr. Michael Breed at michael.breed@colorado.edu).