PROJECT SMART 2009

Project SMART (Science and Mathematics Achievement through Research Training) is a summer institute offered at the University of New Hampshire that challenges, educates, and motivates talented high school students in science and mathematics while acquainting them with the environment and resources of the University as a place for higher education and research. The program is open, on a competitive basis, to high school students who are currently enrolled in the 10th or 11th grade. Program participants study advanced topics in science, mathematics and computers through lectures, demonstrations, hands-on laboratory experience, and field trips, and learn how to do research with UNH faculty and graduate students. The Summer Institute provides an excellent opportunity to learn the interdisciplinary nature of the various scientific fields and how math and computers converge with scientific research.

The program offers hands-on experience combined with lectures and discussions in Biotechnology and Nanotechnology; Marine and Environmental Science; and Space Science modules. Students interact and network with more than 20 UNH faculty members from the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture and the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. Students investigate research questions, use modern instrumentation, analyze data, apply computing techniques to genome and proteome analyses, discuss interdisciplinary aspects of the various sciences, and examine societal issues and various career options in the above fields.

Project SMART summer institute was started in 1991 with students coming mostly from New Hampshire and later from the New England region. During the past two years, special efforts were made to increase the number as well as the diversity of participants. As a result, the summer institute (July 6-31, 2009) reported the most diverse group of students in its 18 year history. With targeted funding from the Liberty Mutual Foundation, the USDA Forest Service, and Alaska EPSCoR, and in collaboration with Anatolia College of Thessaloniki, Greece, 43 aspiring young scientists from rural and urban areas of the northeast, from one of the distinguished schools in Greece, and from rural Alaska, lived together for four weeks and learned to do science in the rural environment of UNH.

NH EPSCoR provided scholarship aid to partially support 9 high school students from New Hampshire. Other funding was provided by the UNH College of Life Sciences and Agriculture, the UNH College of Engineering and Physical Science, the NH Space Grant, the UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space, and NSF grants to some faculty. The Biotechnology lab part of the program was supported by donations of supplies and equipment from several companies, including a cash donation from the International DNA Technology, Iowa.

Image:
Back row, left to right:  Chuck Smith, Pam Puhl-Quinn, Kristen Frederick-Frost, Lou Broad, and Scott Goelzer
Middle row, left to right:  Li-Jen Chen, Pradyoth Kukkapalli, Ryan Horton, Whitney Jo Walker, Lauren Kelly,
and Ian Head
Front row, left to right:  David Connick, Paraj Patel, Lauren Coryea, Thomas Kroll, and Alex Agakidis

The NH EPSCoR program is supported by the National Science Foundation
under Grant No. EPS-0701730.

Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the
author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

NH EPSCoR, University of New Hampshire, 35 Colovos Rd., Gregg Hall, Durham, NH 03824

Copyright © All rights reserved.