REU Site: Plant Biology and Conservation Research Experiences for Undergraduates--From Genes to Ecosystems

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This REU Site award to Chicago Botanic Garden, located in Glencoe, IL, will support the training of 30 undergraduate students over the three summers from 2018- 2020. This plant biology program introduces undergraduates to research aimed at understanding the ecology, evolution, and human impacts on plants and fungi, with work spanning from genetic to ecosystem scales of analysis. The program has two goals: 1) investigate plant ecology and restoration in human-dominated landscapes, and 2) inspire and educate new researchers to move the field forward while engaging and communicating with a broad audience within and beyond the scientific community. Students apply for the program online, and graduate student and faculty mentors are responsible for interviewing and selecting the students that match well in the program.It is anticipated that the 30 students will primarily be from schools with limited research opportunities, who have not participated in REU or similar experiences in the past, and/or are from groups traditionally underrepresented in the biological sciences. Students will learn how research is conducted, engage in an array of training activities, conduct near-peer mentoring of Chicago Public high school students, and present the results of their work at a public symposium. They will also produce a short video about their research that is accessible to a broad audience and posted on the Garden's YouTube channel. A common web-based assessment tool used by all REU Site programs funded by the Division of Biological Infrastructure will be used to determine the effectiveness of the training program. Students will be tracked after the program in order to determine their career paths. Students will be asked to respond to an automatic email sent via the NSF reporting system. More information about the program is available by visiting http://cbgreu.org, or by contacting the PI (Dr. Andrea Kramer at akramer@chicagobotanic.org) or the co-PI (Dr. Jeremie Fant at jfant@chicagobotanic.org).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.