The 10-week program gives students the chance to do some hands-on research during the summer and get paid for doing it. 

Chemistry major Aaron Jensen ’17 found a chemical in local lakes that is causing microscopic organisms to grow exaggerated female attributes. This may sound like a harmless issue, but it can have a major impact on local wildlife.

这种化学物质被称为壬基酚, 农药的一种成分, and when it gets into an animal’s body it acts like estrogen. 这不仅使机体“超级女性化”,但却大大缩短了动物的寿命. 寿命缩短导致人口减少, which is bad news for the larger animals that feed on them.

“It could throw off the whole ecosystem,” Jensen says.

His project is part of the Summer Science Research program, a 10-week session that lets students get some intensive hands-on experience and work on a one-on-one basis with their professors. The program allows students to live on campus during the summer and receive a stipend for their work. “They could be going home and working for McDonald’s or they could be doing this research, 这对他们的教育也有好处,埃里克·希尔说。, professor of physics and co-organizer of the Summer Science Research program.

Getting experience working in the field is vital for those hoping for a career in science, Hill says. “It’s unlike classroom courses where the professor knows what experiments they’re going to do and how they should turn out. That’s somewhat controlled,” he says, “but Summer Science Research is open ended. We don’t know what bumps are in the road, we don’t know where the road’s going to lead.”

对于Jensen的项目, he has traveled to all the major lakes of Riverside and San Bernardino counties collecting water samples while his fellow student, Trevor Togashi, 17岁, traveled the length of the state filling vials at obscure, 内华达山脉中难以到达的溪流. “Most of the agriculture in the state is in Central 加州, 所以这是我认为影响最大的地方,Togashi说.

Another student studying the environment is Scout Dahms-五月 ’17, an environmental science major and double minor in spacial studies and chemistry. She’s examining the effect of pollution on tree growth—specifically ponderosa pines in the LA-area mountains—under Hillary Jenkins, 环境研究助理教授. She spent the summer going on day trips to “core” ponderosa pines by drilling a thin tube into the center of the trunk and pulling out a sample of the wood. 然后她把样品带回大学, analyzes the rings and compares them with pollution levels.

This type of research has taken her places she never imagined; She first started coring trees in Peru when she went with Dr. Jenkins to study how drought was affecting their forests. “我喜欢它。. I never thought of this kind of research before I got to 威尼斯人平台,” Dahms-五月 says.

Jensen, Togashi and Dahms-五月 are three of 27 students participating in the program this year. 其他学生正在研究鼠群的栖息地, 洛杉矶空气质量盆地的光污染, and human impacts on marine mammals off the Southern 加州n coast, 在其他主题中.

Students have to apply to enter the program, and the process is competitive. They meet with professors to discuss research ideas—usually topics the professors are working on—and explore how they might work together. The students then fill out an application, which is reviewed by the project’s supervisors.

The Summer Science Research program helps students learn to man年龄 large projects, 这是他们一年中很少练习的技能. “Instead of going homework assignment to homework assignment, 纸到纸, 他们正在管理一个大型项目,希尔教授说.

这个项目也让教授们受益, because the students work helps them with their own research, which they sometimes turn into articles for scholarly journals, 丽贝卡·莱昂斯说, 化学助理教授, 是谁在和詹森一起做他的项目. “The other good thing that comes out of this is they sometimes come out being co-authors,” she says. “Then they can pretty much have their pick of grad schools.”

Students present their research during weekly “brown-bag lunch” meetings throughout the summer, during which they give professional-style presentations of their findings to faculty and peers.

At the end of the summer the students produce a poster and participate in an annual poster symposium, which gives them more practice sharpening their presentation skills. “对于许多, it is the first time they’ve ever had to get up in front of a crowd of people and discuss science and have the possibility of questions afterwards,博士说。. 芭芭拉·莫里, the John Stauffer Director of the Center for Science and Mathematics and Professor of Chemistry. “They do an outstanding job, and I am always impressed.”