ASU Mentor Kindles Student's Talents and Gets Research Assistance in the Process

 

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For the past two years, School of Life Sciences doctoral student, Kevin McCluney has participated as a graduate mentor in the Southwest Center for Education and the Natural Environment’s (SCENE) Research Experiences for High School Students program. It’s a relationship that is beneficial for both the students and the mentor. The high school students receive invaluable hands-on experience, and McCluney has some of the brightest local high school scholars providing him with important information that is pertinent to his research. “SCENE students are amazing: really intelligent, dedicated,” says McCluney. “But also young.” For many of them, the SCENE program is the first time that they are asked to be truly responsible for an independent project.

 

The Research Experiences for High School Students program provides academically-talented students in grades 10-12 the chance to participate in real-world scientific discovery and find out what it takes to be a professional scientist. Students are immersed in cutting-edge research, investigating original questions to which the answer is not yet known. They work for six months with Arizona State University scientists, engaging in inquiry activities that are integral to their mentors’ research projects and undertaking their own related research.

 

While each of McCluney’s students chose to do projects related to his own research -- investigating the role of water availability on animal community structure -- he is quick to say that their project ideas are “surprising and original,” ranging from the effect of water availability on the frequency of cricket calling, to rates of cricket predation by wolf spiders.

 

McCluney has seen what he describes as an “awakening” in his students “You see them growing up and coming into their own thoughts about how the world works and their place in it,” he says.

 

Many students in the SCENE program find themselves in nature for the first time. Although McCluney’s charges have grown up in a desert city, most had never been directly confronted with the issues of water availability and sustainability which are at the heart of McCluney’s research. For these students, their introduction to ecology comes through interactions with their new study organisms: crickets and spiders.

 

At first, students are a little jumpy and nervous around their many-legged subjects, but they quickly get used to them. According to McCluney, part of the students’ growth as scientists is discovering that “bugs are not icky or disgusting. They can be really cool.” In fact, McCluney says some of his students are “probably less nervous around the spiders than I am.”
 
Learning to love their study organisms is just one step in a long process through which mentors like McCluney guide their students. “There’s lots of effort in drawing students into the research. They need to do background reading, get used to being in a lab, and learn about experimental design before the understanding is there to come up with a really cool experiment,” McCluney says.

 

Students eventually learn that even small research projects have their challenges. Those who come back for second and third years begin at a higher level, developing projects that are more original and intricate. Regardless of their place in the program, SCENE students are impressed with the dedication and care that scientific research demands, and, according to McCluney, most students rise to the challenge.

 

During student Puja Umaretiya’s second year of the SCENE program, she built on the training and experience she gained with McCluney the previous year to set up her project. Over the course of three weekends, Umaretiya examined the effect that water could have as a limiting resource in the context of prey consumption at low hydration, as well as a quenching effect at higher levels of hydration.

 

Umaretiya found that spider consumption of crickets is maximal at intermediate levels of hydration, with rates of consumption lower at very high and very low levels of cricket hydration. The resulting curve suggests that there are trade-offs between the effort involved in catching crickets and the resulting hydration payoff.

 

The project earned Umaretiya the Grand Award in the Senior Division at the Central Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair (CARSEF), first place in the Animal Sciences division, the United States Navy Naval Science Award, and the United States Army Award. In addition, both McCluney and Umaretiya received congratulatory notes from ASU President Michael M. Crow.

 

McCluney and Umaretiya extended their collaboration through the summer to write up the results of her study for publication. This fall, Umaretiya began her college career at one of the nation’s top universities. She plans to pursue a career in medicine. McCluney will continue to participate as a SCENE mentor for the high school program and do his part to help build the next generation of scientists.

 

Adapted from an article by Kate Ihle.

 

Kate Ihle writes for the SOLS newsletter and is a doctoral student in the laboratories of Robert Page and Gro Amdam  in the School of Life Sciences. Email her at kate.ihle@asu.edu.

 

Kevin McCluney is a doctoral student in the laboratory of John Sabo in the School of Life Sciences.

 

SCENE is a non-profit organization administered out of the Global Institute of Sustainability that fosters bridges between the research programs of Arizona State University and the community.

 

To learn more about how ASU is engaged with the community, please visit ASU in the Community’s Program Database which connects you to a wide variety of specific ASU outreach efforts.