conducting a research project funded by a $500,000 National Science Foundation grant<\/a> and they collaborate with students each summer to help keep the project moving. By studying a type of bacteria that has a condition called competence, they\u2019re using microbiology and microscopy techniques to observe how bacteria find DNA in the environment and import it into themselves, incorporating it into their own genomes.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re trying to more fully understand how they accomplish this, using a combination of microbiology techniques and microscopy techniques. That\u2019s the cool collaborative part, allowing us to put our skills together.\u201d<\/p>\n
They co-teach a First-Year Experience course based on their research project, and during that FYE, the students get one block of background information and introduction to lab work, and then spend a block conducting research. \u201cThe idea that you can bring in first year students and have them produce something and have this transformative experience so early in their careers, that\u2019s unusual,\u201d says Lang.<\/p>\n
Tenente was exposed to the research program in that FYE course and says the opportunity to work directly on a research project provided insight in making career decisions. \u201cThis has defined a lot of my career path,\u201d says Tenente, who graduated in May and is now working as a researcher on this project for the next year. \u201cI knew I wanted to do something with biology, but that first year gave me an insight into what it meant to be a researcher, and I liked it, I liked finding results \u2013 that\u2019s just a small part of it \u2013 and I liked the whole process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lang says she and Lostroh often hire between two and four students out of that FYE class, so the research students are starting in the lab in the fall of their first year, \u201cwhich is great for them, to get research experience early,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd, it\u2019s great for us to have students who know they\u2019re interested and have a background. These students typically work for us a couple of years throughout their time at CC.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boyd, who\u2019s majoring in molecular biology, also became involved in research during her first year at CC, \u201cwhich is wonderful,\u201d she says. \u201cBeing able to do it for much longer than a block or a summer tells you how much goes into research. I also found out I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boyd spent a semester doing research abroad, and says the experience she had already gained at CC enabled her to survive and contribute to the process overseas. \u201cThrough this research experience, I\u2019m learning new ways of analysis that can be applied across other labs, learning things I would not have gotten in other classes,\u201d says Boyd.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a rare opportunity, for undergraduate students to participate so fully in research, and Lang says the time working with students in the lab addresses much more than the research project. \u201cWe\u2019re a teaching college at CC, and the best part is feeling like this is an extension of my teaching. It is teaching them practical things, like lab skills; it\u2019s teaching them how to interact with supervisors in a professional job setting; it\u2019s helping them determine whether they like professional science and this kind of research and giving them the experience to make educated decisions about their academic futures.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have lots of students I continue to mentor when they go on to be graduate students, so these are very long term, meaningful relationships. There\u2019s lots more to the research, than the research and those other things are as important than actually the research product itself,\u201d says Lang.<\/p>\n
You can catch students discussing their summer work and findings during a\u00a0final Summer Collaborate Research program presentation: Friday, August 5, in Slocum Commons, 12:15-1 p.m.<\/p>\n
All Summer Collaborative Research program participants will present at the Undergraduate Research Symposium, Friday, Sept. 30, 3:30-5 p.m. in Cornerstone Main Space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What did you do this summer? Pose that question to Ricardo Tenente \u201916, Caroline Boyd \u201917, or a number of other students in the Summer Collaborative Research program (SCoRe), and you might get an answer like: \u201cJust studying how bacteria incorporate DNA into their genomes by observing the process via an Atomic Force Microscope.\u201d Through … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “SCoRe! Students Contribute, Collaborate in Summer Research Program”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":648,"featured_media":3012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-around-campus","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/files\/2016\/08\/SCoRe.jpg?fit=1000%2C679&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/648"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3013,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011\/revisions\/3013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}