Group projects and group mentorship: Building research teams and building capacity at the Harvard Forest Summer Research Program in Ecology

Background/Question/Methods

The 25-year-old Harvard Forest Summer Research Program in Ecology provides opportunities for > 30 students each summer to conduct mentored, independent research on measuring, understanding, and forecasting the effects of natural disturbances, human activities, and global climatic change on patterns and processes in forest ecosystems. Programmatic goals include: recruiting annual cohorts of diverse students from a range of cultural, ethnic, economic, and demographic backgrounds; providing students with intensive, immersive research experiences; generating reliable data that students and mentors can co-publish in peer-reviewed journals; and encouraging participants to continue their work in science in graduate or professional school and as scientifically-literate citizens.  Meeting all of these goals in a single program is challenging and requires new approaches beyond the traditional one student + one mentor research “apprenticeship”. With core support provided through an NSF’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site award and a NASA Innovations in Climate Education (NICE) award, and partnerships with Lincoln University and ESA’s SEEDS program, the Harvard Forest program has pioneered a model in which groups of three students and three or more senior research mentors embark on a multi-disciplinary collaboration focused on a central research question. Each group project includes field work, statistical analysis, computer modeling. Outcomes include blog posts, presentations at a student symposium and national meetings, and peer-reviewed publications with undergraduate coauthors.

Results/Conclusions

The diverse needs of successful research teams, including computer programming, engineering, and GIS modeling, along with “standard” ecological field skills, has dramatically expanded our pool of potential participants. Since implementing the team research model in 2010, applications have increased 20% (from 491 in 2010 to 605 in 2012), and the number of applications from students self-identifying as being from groups traditionally underrepresented in science has nearly doubled (from 65 in 2010 to 109 in 2012). Three examples of group projects highlight how participating students learn skills germane to individual research projects; engage in peer-to-peer mentorship at the same time that they interact intensively with senior researchers; build networks of friends and future colleagues; and develop practices of collaborative inquiry that are fundamental to modern scientific research. Peer-to-peer mentoring also encourages mentors to mix advanced students with students from schools with limited opportunities for research, and allows students of all levels to see themselves as researchers and teachers. This model of group mentorship engages students from disciplines beyond ecology and biology and encourages ecological literacy across STEM fields and the social sciences.