Calendar and Ancillary Activities

This program will take place from June 1 through August 6, 2010.

Specific activities are described below.

Orientation
Students will arrive the Sunday before the opening day of the program and will be helped into their on-campus housing by the faculty mentors. The students can use the rest of the day to explore the campus and surrounding town. On the first day of the program, students will meet for a morning orientation session where they will get acquainted with one another, the faculty mentors and the support staff with whom they will be working. The PI will explain the structure, goals and schedule of the REU program. Students will tour the science facilities in Smith Hall and then tour the campus, especially the library where they will be able to receive a Towson email account and obtain training on conducting scientific searches with the databases available at Towson. Students will then meet individually with their mentors and will be introduced to their research project and the laboratory facilities in which they will be working.

Research
Of the 50 work days available during a 10 week program, 35 days will be 100% dedicated to research. Of the remaining days, one day will be spent in orientation, and two days will be spent in proposal and closing presentations. The remaining 12 days will still be 75% dedicated to research but will have 1 – 3 hours for seminars and other activities.

External Seminar Speakers
We will invite external speakers in for bi-weekly seminars on Weeks 2, 4, 6 and 8. These seminars will expose students to areas of urban environmental biogeochemistry beyond the research occurring at Towson University. Speakers will come from local institutions such as University of Maryland Baltimore County, the US Forest Service in Baltimore County, Johns Hopkins University, Frostburg University, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory.

Workshop on Professional Presentations
This afternoon workshop will engage students in the construction, delivery and critical evaluation of poster presentations and oral PowerPoint presentations. These skills will be further used in the proposal presentation and closing presentation during the program.

Proposal Presentation
In Week 3, students will give an oral presentation to their student colleagues and the faculty mentors detailing the background and goals of their research. These presentations are an important step toward student ownership of their projects. In preparation for the presentation students will need to learn the context of their research, evaluate papers from the primary literature and be able to articulately communicate the techniques they are using to collect data.

Journal Article Discussions
In order to further student ownership of their research projects, each student will present a project-related paper from the primary literature to their student colleagues. Students will work with their mentors to achieve a solid understanding of the paper then present a synopsis in a round table discussion format. All students will read the paper prior to the meeting and will prepare questions or criticisms prior to the discussion. Journal club meetings will occur on 4 afternoons (Weeks 3, 5, 7, and 9) with 2 presentations at each meeting (approximately 1.5 hours per meeting).

Closing Session
By the close of the program, we expect students to articulately describe the background, techniques and outcomes of their research project. Students will prepare posters that will be displayed in a poster session on the final day of the program. Formal invitations will be provided for the wider community of faculty and students in the sciences at Towson University, University officers and administrators, students’ families, friends and mentors from their home institutions, and representatives of organizations funding the research.

Social Activities
Along with informal picnics hosted by faculty, we will arrange transportation for several weekend outdoor activities for interested students. These may include hikes (the Appalachian Trail is just over an hour west of Towson) or canoe/kayak excursions on local lakes or the Chesapeake Bay. Historically, some students have also participating in the faculty/staff summer softball league at Towson University. Nearby downtown Baltimore also offers museums, a zoo, the National Aquarium, professional sports, and theater opportunities for interested students.