Lovely vignettes of REU students, conveying the personal impact of this experience. How has this video been used? Is it excerpted from a longer version? What plans are there to disseminate this video?

Hi Richard, thank you for the nice note. Your questions are good ones and, yes, this video was originally five minutes. We created it to help recruit minority students into our summer-long mentored-research program at the La Selva Research Station in the lowland rainforest of Costa Rica. For the moment we are showing it at study abroad fairs, we have it posted on our website, and we send links of the video through student inquiries. Sponsored by NSF, eligible students in the REU program receive free room and board, round-trip airfare, and a weekly stipend.

I have often wondered if the NSF might support a half-hour or even hour-long documentary for PBS and other distribution, sharing the remarkable stories of REU students. Your producer did a fine job here!

I have thought about how this might be accomplished many times, such as following a student from his or her college, through the summer, and to his or her return home. To me, this would be fascinating, especially in a “site-based” program where a cohort of students interact with one another throughout the summer. Our NSF grant from the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) provides support for Native American and Pacific Islander undergraduate students to come to our research stations in Costa Rica for a field-based experience. As part of the summer, the students interact with leaders from the indigenous communities in the surrounding area and learn about their environmental issues. Such a film, following these students from their home location in the Pacific or from, perhaps, their reservation would be extraordinary, as their everyday experiences and their life-styles are so different from what they encounter in Costa Rica and yet, in the course of the summer, they too find the science to be relevant to their lives and their communities and a bridge to a baccalaureate degree and even a career choice.

Isn’t it wonderful how responsive kids can be when they are given chances to really DO science? In spite of tedious protocols, rain, and mosquitos. My son did a similar EarthWatch project as a teenager and it changed his life. Of course, he knew that he wanted to do the project, so his experience was almost guaranteed to succeed. How do you get prospective participants interest? How do you measure success?

We recognize that the students selected into the program have an affinity for science, it is just that they don’t see how they can get from their latent interests to actual science degrees. I think taking students at risk of dropping out of college, changing their majors, or even studying in a community college or university from where they would never get this opportunity, is precisely why we are so enthusiastic about this program. We spend a good part of the year working with faculty from such schools to identify students who would prosper from this experience. The work, though, is not just about giving the students a summer experience but in following up afterwards with the faculty so that the students are using what they learned in their classes, are presenting their research in their departments and at national science conferences, and are submitting their research papers for publication. We work with their faculty to track the students and help in their transfer to four-year schools or to complete their science degrees. Ultimately, for us, it is what they do after their bachelor’s that is important. Do they “bridge” to a Masters or Doctorate and/or do they move into the work force as young scientists and technicians. Can we show that they are sustaining what they learned that one summer and parlayed it into a future for themselves when none existed previously. We think we can show this and will focus on this even more comprehensively over the next several years.

Bravo on the work you have undertaken. REU In the Forest should be submitted for an Emmy award. Seriously. Have you thought about developing an REU In the Rainforest version to be shared at the high school or middle school level, for students and teachers? Native American students at those grades are falling through the cracks and never make it to the community college or university levels. It’s not that they are incapable, but a result of having few qualified teachers and little access to STEM courses, and hope, to make them eligible for college. This makes it difficult for you to find students for your program. You have a package that would entice young students to make it if they learned the pathway to get there much earlier. Thank you for the work you do.

This is an absolutely beautiful video which is so effective in sharing the program with a large public audience. I agree with Jerry that it would be great to show this video to students in high school and middle school. Thanks for submitting this!!!

My 5-year-old grandson says: “It’s so that people are able to make students that are in college become scientists! I love the way you made this video.”