Meeting Abstract
Women and minorities are seriously underrepresented across the sciences. To help create positive change in ecology, we developed a program called TREE (Turtle Camp Research and Education in Ecology). We seeded the program primarily with an economically and racially diverse group of high school students from rural and urban areas, along with undergraduate and graduate student mentors from across the United States. Participants converged at a field site in northwest Illinois on the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge and the Army Corps of Engineers Thomson Causeway Recreation Area during June of 2007-2012 and 2014-2018 (totaling 59 different high school students, 28 undergraduate students, 17 graduate students, and 4 post-doctorates over the 11 program years). All individuals worked toward four main goals at the site: research experience, education, local outreach, and mentoring. The program capitalized on the extensive diversity of reptiles at the site, giving the students hands-on experience with research and related activities. Anonymous surveys of the high school participants – the vast majority of whom were women and/or racial minorities – revealed that TREE provided an excellent environment for advancing interest in, and knowledge of, science and for influencing career plans of the participants. Many alums have since pursued science-related degrees at universities. This program is a successful model of the importance of outreach, and near-peer mentoring in diversifying the STEM workforce. We thus hope that TREE inspires other research groups to develop programs to expose students from diverse backgrounds to ecological research, education, outreach, and mentoring
