Meeting Abstract

P3.125  Tuesday, Jan. 6  The Summer Systematics Institute: Hands-on, collections-based undergraduate research at the California Academy of Sciences MOOI, R.; California Academy of Sciences rmooi@calacademy.org

With world-wide threats to biodiversity and growing interest in the origins and diversification of life, phylogenetic systematics and evolutionary biology have become critical components of undergraduate education. More than 12 years ago, to help address these issues, the California Academy of Sciences launched the Summer Systematics Institute (SSI) with support from NSF’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) initiative and the Academy’s Wallace endowment. The SSI is an 8-week internship at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The SSI has brought to the Academy more than 100 undergraduates from almost 40 different states to work on research with an advisor of their choice on a project relating to the discipline of that advisor. Participants also receive instruction while taking part in a museum-based curriculum that includes tours, lectures, and lab exercises on phylogenetic systematics, molecular techniques, biodiversity, evolutionary biology, global change, and other contemporary issues in the natural sciences. In the past 4 years, 9 of the undergrads attended the SICB meeting that followed their summer internship and presented their findings in the form of talks and posters. Among the 28 participants of the past 4 years, 26 different universities and colleges are represented from 15 different states. The Academy has just opened its state-of-the-art new museum in Golden Gate Park, and this exciting REU Site will continue to offer undergrads, particularly those from groups under-represented in the sciences, important insights into the contributions that museum-based research can make to issues facing society today.