Meeting Abstract

82.3  Tuesday, Jan. 6  Undergraduate Research: Benefiting Students and Professors HIEBERT, S.M.*; MORSE, M.P.; Swarthmore College, PA; Univ. of Washington, Seattle shieber1@swarthmore.edu

Undergraduate teaching and research are viewed by many faculty as competitors for valuable time. Integrating undergraduate research projects into the laboratory sections of regular courses, as well as into intensive summer research programs, allow faculty to provide outstanding learning opportunities for undergraduates while at the same time benefiting their own research programs. In addition, providing such hands-on opportunities for undergraduates has been shown to increase retention of women and under-represented minorities in the sciences, and to reduce or eliminate performance gaps in the classroom; thus these activities contribute substantially to the broader impacts of a research program and can greatly enhance this aspect of a grant proposal. In this presentation, we describe two models for incorporating independent research by undergraduates into a larger research programa collaborative apprenticeship program held during the summer at a biological research station (Friday Harbor Laboratories) and an independent research project component of a course in Animal Physiology. In both, we stress the aspects of the programs that contribute to success, the ways in which the products of the research accomplished by undergraduates contribute to the overall research effort of the PI, and unique opportunities for low-risk exploration of ideas that these programs afford.