What I love about REU...*

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We had a cluster meeting today and spent the entire hour letting the students update us on their research progress. The projects include lake water sampling, monitoring ant populations, relating plant cover to remotely sensed data, and modeling BTU output for potential biofuel applications**. Each student talked about what they had been doing so far and what kind of data collection and analysis they would be doing. Some common themes ran through each discussion, such as steep learning curves and struggling with defining and explaining research. In this program, we mentor students, but expect them to take ownership of their projects and ask them to explain their planned work early on. It's always a struggle for me to keep quiet when my student is talking about the work at this stage. I always worry that I am not providing enough guidance (or too much guidance without being clear about the big picture). It can be challenging for the students early on, but I thought they all did a good job and answered questions from the faculty (I don't think any students asked each other any questions!)

These meetings are a great opportunity for throwing out ideas and helping the students focus and define their projects based on questions and feedback from others. By the end of the summer, the students present their work, so it's fun to see the evolution of them tentatively describing what they will be doing to giving a research talk. I had been a little concerned that my student and I were behind, but it sounds like the other students are still learning new skills and catching up on literature, too. We have completed three weeks of this ten-week program, so it's still early- BUT the times always flies! We are starting to pre-process our image data, so the work should go quickly once that is finished and results will follow soon after that- and hopefully some writing!


*REU = Research Experiences for Undergraduates. I am a frequent participant in an ecology-focused REU program. You can read more here and here.
**Guess which student is mine :)

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