What is a key way to build a stronger U.S. scientific community for the future? By expanding learning opportunities to a broad range of interested students now.
That goal is the foundation for a well-rounded science education program in the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources this summer.
The 10-week program, with the theme “Expanding Opportunities in Agricultural Sciences and Crop-to-Food Innovation,” has brought together Husker scientists and private-sector experts to provide a wide-ranging curriculum to select undergraduate students from Nebraska and across the country. The project’s recruitment included historically Black colleges and universities, including those created under the 1890-Second Morrill Act, to extend opportunities to underrepresented students in science- and agriculture-related careers.
“We’ve learned how to communicate science better and how to think more scientifically and about the scientific method,” said Nathlita Karnley, a biology major at Fayetteville State University, an HBCU in North Carolina. “You really learn about science and the impact of your project. You learn how it’s going to benefit society. It also can help you regard framing your business, if you want a business.”
Each student is mentored by an ANR faculty member. Karnley’s mentor is microbiologist Jennifer Auchtung, assistant professor of food science and technology.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture provided a $742,000 grant to the university for the program, known as Research and Extension Experiences for Undergraduates. ANR will host the program for five summers. Six students are participating this summer, and 46 will participate over the course of the program.
“Expanding opportunities is really important,” said Ed Cahoot, George W. Holmes Professor of biochemistry and the project’s principal investigator. “A lot of students, especially from HBCU and 1890 land-grant universities, may not have the opportunities that some other students do to consider research as a career.”
For some students, this is their first chance for focused laboratory research, for example.
The country’s scientific community can benefit by working to remove some barriers to pursuing science as a career, said Cahoot, director of the Center for Plant Science Innovation.
Students have had sessions on science literacy, research fundamentals and science communication skills. Faculty and graduate students are leading mentored laboratory experiences. Sessions explain research-project commercialization and entrepreneurship. Private-sector experts describe opportunities for science-focused employment in industry.
The program expands educational opportunities for “students who think they might be interested in pursuing research, going to grad school or having a career in agriculture and agricultural sciences,” said Amanda Marcy Professor of Agriculture and Natural Resources with Nebraska’s Department of Food Science and Technology. “I’m excited we can provide these opportunities for students to find out if it’s something that they’re passionate about.”
The sessions give students “tools to plan a path forward for themselves,” she said, “and give them the opportunity to see themselves as being successful as members of the agricultural science community.”
Is co-principal investigator for the program, along with Paul Velander, assistant professor of biochemistry and Nebraska Extension specialist.
“You’re really building up students, both from the very fundamental level — in the wet lab space, how to think through a scientific lens, science literacy — but also mentoring them to think clearly and to pursue what their interests are,” Ve lander said. “The program also gives them context about science and business and entrepreneurialism.”
Students have learned about research commercialization and business dimensions from Tom Field, director of the angler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program at Nebraska; Josh Nichole Caddy, director of technology commercialization with the College of Business Administration at the University of Nebraska at Omaha; and Matt Foley, program director at Invest Nebraska and program director at The Combine, an adtech incubator.
Each Wednesday, students have lunches in which industry experts describe science-focused professions in the private sector. At one lunch, students visited the genomics labs at the Neo gen facility in Lincoln.
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