UA Environmental Health Transformative Research Undergrad Experience(EH TRUE)

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 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The University of Arizona (UA) Environmental Health Sciences Transformative Research Undergraduate Experience (E-H-TRUE) research education program will deliver a two-year, highly integrated research and education training program in environmental health sciences, designed to engage, educate, and retain 40 undergraduate students underrepresented in environmental health sciences over five years through the combined expertise of two internationally recognized groups at UA. The UA Center for Toxicology, one of the preeminent toxicology research and training centers in the world, is home to a large NIH-funded research effort in environmental toxicology that includes the NIEHS-funded Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center (SWEHSC) and the UA Superfund Research Program. In E-H-TRUE, the Center for Toxicology joins forces with the UA Undergraduate Research Program (UBRP), which has served as a model for other universities in experiential undergraduate research training for more than 26 years. Early contact with high school and with freshman/sophomore undergraduates will be coordinated through existing networks used by UBRP to identify talented undergraduates from diverse backgrounds who are interested in pursuing science careers. The training program will provide participants with the preparation and support that will enable them to have the kinds of research experiences that ignite a desire to pursue graduate degrees. The educational component will include a specifically designed colloquium course in the environmental health sciences that will use as its framework, real-world toxicant exposure scenarios in Arizona, exploring the source, toxicology, epidemiology, government regulatory, and the community social impact in these settings. Participants will also receive practical training in laboratory task management. Using an online task management system called Trello (trello.com), students will work with mentors to define hypotheses and research questions, break those questions down to individual experiments, and organize the experiments sequentially, with due dates, and to effectively present results. Throughout the program, networking and near-peer mentoring will be emphasized. Near-peer mentoring will include participation from current trainees in the UA NIEHS T32 training grant, which has been continuously funded for 33 years. The E-H-TRUE program will nurture the development of a scientific self-identity in participants through organized group activities where their experiences can be shared, as well as in structured environmental health science community outreach activities, organized through the outreach core in SWEHSC. E-H-TRUE will build innovative ideas into its support for its participants in this potential career choice. In on novel community outreach approach, participants will be accompanied by research mentors on a visit to the participants' home communities (home town, tribal community) to discuss their research and their research experience with their own community. To keep the project on track and to measure impact, a plan for formative and summative evaluation is detailed in the proposal.