Progress 05/01/23 to 04/30/24
Outputs
Target Audience: Report of Summer Cohort for UD Envision (+ CANR Summer Institute, Unique Strength Scholars, Extension Scholar) This year's cohort of 26students from UD and around the US conducted research in the laboratories and field locations of 19 project investigators. Their target audiences were: 1. Local research community (at UD) - All students produced posters or oral presentations at a University-wide research symposium held on Thursday, August 8, 2024. 2. Stakeholders in the state of Delaware (poultry producers, dairy producers, produce growers, and public consumers). This was through the representation of their research in presentations by their mentoring faculty/staff. 3. Public at large: Each student produced a video for YouTube detailing their reserach that is available on YouTube at the channel of the PD (Mark Parcells, Ph.D. - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFrhTQXvldvtUfwxLPAcT1w). All of these videos were uploaded to 4 gB jump-drive bottle openers and 500 were distributed at the Delaware State Fair in Harrington Delaware on Sunday, July 21, 2024. In addition, over 1,000 UD Envision fidget spinners were distributed, as well. Changes/Problems: We again had issuesinternal to UD and due to inconsistenthousing for on-campus undergraduate research programs, and in the coordination of fund distribution to participants in a consistent fashion. We again used"The Waverly", a UD associated apartment complex for International students which has 4-bedroom apartments with separate baths for each bedroom as well as a full sized kitchen and living room area. We have had to subsidize this housing with linens, shower curtains, etc., but these worked out very well and we anticipate using this arrangement for summer 2025. The continues to be under participation of our granting partners (Cheyney University, Lincoln University, and Delaware State University). We are targeting these schools for our outreach publicity sessions in January 2025to hopefully drum up more applicants from these schools. That being said, we have had applicants from more than 25 different colleges and Universities this past year (including other HBCUs). So we are reaching a larger pool of appiicants. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?All participants, plus students participating in other college programs were able to attend all of thetrainings. These did include more personal development programs on graduate school, ePortfolio development and individual development plans IDPs. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?As noted in products and other accomplishments, we did have two published papers from work conducted by UD Envision participants and 26 videos of research uploaded to YouTube (URLs provided). The viewing and distribution of videos at the Public Outreach event (DE State Fair) is well received and we have people that come to see our program every year. This has become a fixture in the Agricultural Annex building during the week of the State Fair. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to continue our recruitement and content/opportunity program delivery while drafting a renewal for this program (it will be its final year of funding). We have been working with the college on establishing foundation funding to maintain and expand the current size of the program.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
We continued to provide a 10 week summer undergraduate research program involving training in laboratory safety, recombinant DNA, IACUC, specific videography training (three 2 hour sessions), poster and ePortfolio development. We also have provided training and guidance on video content optimization for impact, branding and appropriate use of PPE. Participants participated in individual research projects as well as several group activities.
Publications
- Type:
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Patria, J.N.; Jwander, L.; Mbachu, I.; Parcells, L.; Ladman, B.; Trimpert, J.; Kaufer, B.B.; Tavlarides-Hontz, P.; Parcells, M.S. The Meq Genes of Nigerian Mareks Disease Virus (MDV) Field Isolates Contain Mutations Common to Both European and US High Virulence Strains. Viruses 2025, 17, 56. https://doi.org/10.3390/v17010056
- Type:
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Qingwu Meng, Stefanie N. Severin,
Continuous light can promote growth of baby greens over diurnal light under a high daily light integral. Environmental and Experimental Botany, Volume 220, 2024, 105695,ISSN 0098-8472,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envexpbot.2024.105695.
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Progress 05/01/22 to 04/30/23
Outputs
Target Audience:Report of Summer Cohort for UD Envision (+ CANR Summer Institute, Unique Strength Scholars, Extension Scholar) This year's cohort of 27 students from UD and around the US conducted research in the laboratories and field locations of 19 project investigators. Their target audiences were: 1. Local research community (at UD) - All students produced posters or oral presentations at a University-wide research symposium held on Thursday, August 10. 2. Stakeholders in the state of Delaware (poultry producers, dairy producers, produce growers, and public consumers). This was through the representation of their research in presentations by their mentoring faculty/staff. 3. Public at large: Each student produced a video for YouTube detailing their reserach that is available on YouTube at the channel of the PD (Mark Parcells, Ph.D. -https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFrhTQXvldvtUfwxLPAcT1w). All of these videos were uploaded to 4 gB jump-drive bottle openers and 500 were distributed at the Delaware State Fair in Harrington Delaware on Sunday, July 23, 2023. Changes/Problems:We have noticed two issues with the program this year. One has been internal to UD and has been understaffed housing for on-campus undergraduate research programs. We have been working with "The Waverly" a UD associated apartment complex for International students which has 4-bedroom apartments with separate baths for each bedroom as well as a full sized kitchen and living room area. We have had to subsidize this housing with linens, shower curtains, etc., but these worked out very well and we anticipate using this arrangement for summer 2024. The second issue has been the under participation of our granting partners (Cheyney University, Lincoln University, Delaware State University and University of Md - Eastern Shore). We are targeting these schools for our outreach publicity sessions in January 2024 to hopefully drum up applicants from these schools. As lead PD, I did attend and distribute a flyer for summer 2024 at a poster symposium in November at Lincoln University. That being said, we have had applicants from 26 different colleges and Universities this past year (including Howard University, UMBC, and St. Augustine's University in North Carolina). So we are reaching a larger pool of appiicants. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Each of the participants was required to attend the followign training sessions: For working in laboratory settings, we had Chemical Right-to-Know, Chemical Hygiene and Biosafety training during the first week of the program with additional IACUC training for those in labs performing animal research. For developing their videos, participants were required to attend (3) videography training sessions (2 hrs each) focusing on equipment, editing, voice over and music addition to aid them in producing their videos. In addition, we had a lunchtime session on video content development to optimize the impact of their videos, present consistent University branding, and ensure all PPE were worn for all lab experiences depicted in their videos. Following videography training sessions, all students attended a presentation on scientific poster development, development of their ePortfolio and given access to a dedicated printer for their research poster. All students attended a lunchtime seminar on Graduate School: the applicaiton process, the types of graduate programs and effective training for graduate school. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?As noted in the products for this period, we uploaded and distributed Youtube videos to the public at the Delaware State Fair. This is at a booth in the Agriculture Annex building and employs several video screens showing these videos. As the videos play, the participants engage with the public, hand out the jump drives and fidget spinners (for children). This is recognized as an annual thing and we have many people seek out our booth to engage with the students and get updates on research in different areas of Agricultural research. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Because of the continued success of this program, and its growth each year in terms of the number of students hosted, we plan continued outreach to regional MSIs and nationwide 1890 organizations to increase minority participation.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
For Summer 2023, we not only were able to fund the 11 students budgeted but through leveraging two additional summer programs (CANR Summer Institute and CANR Unique Strength Scholars) we are able to fund an additional 10 students. In addition, we had an addition 6 students funded through grants awarded to individual investigators. We were therefore able to host 27 students for this Summer and given the success of this program, we are leveraging a graduate assistantship to fund a student dedicated to the assessment of this program.
Publications
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Progress 05/01/21 to 04/30/22
Outputs
Target Audience:An important limitation in the development of scientists is the conceptual hurdle students face envisioning themselves as scientists. This hurdle arises due to many factors (lack of opportunity, an absence of visible role models, misconceptions of what scientists do, underestimating the level of persistence required, negative cultural perceptions, etc.) Undergraduate research experiences (UREs) have been developed at many institutions to provide an active learning environment to aid in this transformative conceptualization. Recent analysis of the success of these programs suggests that many UREs fall short of this goal (1). With the growing human population, estimated to exceed 9 billion by the year 2050, the need for agricultural scientists capable of addressing global food security in a sustainable environment, is critical. To address the need of developing these scientists, we plan the following: A.Defined, research-intensive experiences in One Health and Sustainable Food Production B.Cohort-model enrichment activities C.Participation in a University-based Research Symposia D.Video storytelling with presentations at a public venue (Delaware State Fair) Partnering with nearby minority-serving institutions (Cheyney University, Lincoln University, Delaware State University, University of Maryland-Eastern Shore, and Wesley College - taken over by Delaware State University in 2020), we plan to fund 50 undergraduate students over a 5-year period, as 10 competitively-awarded, 10-week summer fellowships each year. One additional student will be recruited as an Extension Scholars per year. Additional students may be funded through other sponsored programs. Participants will receive stipends, a research budget, as well as intensive training in research ethics, safety, videography, hypothesis development, and will participate in team-building exercises. As outputs, participants will engage with the public at the Delaware State Fair, presenting and distributing videos of their research, and will present posters at the university-wide undergraduate research symposium. In addition, the Program will be rigorously assessed to determine best practices for conducting productive undergraduate research experiences leading to long-term career choices. This proposal represents an expansion of a previously-funded REEU (award # 2017-67032-26009)in its final year of funding. The prior award was under a no-cost extension (NCE) due to residual funding from the previous award and the cancellation of the original program in summer 2020 due to Covid lockdown of the University of Delaware Campus. Changes/Problems:The major problems with summer 2021 was the partial nature of the UD campus being "open". Due to staff furloughs and early retirements, there were numerous administrative staff shortages. There were additional inconsistent messages from the UD administration regarding vaccine mandates that made this program (which involves students from outside UD coming to campus, some via air travel) somewhat problematic. That being said, summer 2021 was successful and had the highest number of participants to date (summer 2022 has an equal number). Given the inconsistent information from UD administration, we adopted a local administrative approach and based on our vaccine requirement, weekly testing and choice of venue location for group activities, we had no super-spreeder Covid events. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?All participants received training in the following areas: Chemical Right-to-know Chemical Hygiene Biosafety IACUC (for those working with animals or desiring this training) Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Videography (3) 2 hour sessions with additional individual instruction (all virtual), as needed Video content for impact: training on generating impactful videos using appropriate content, consistent branding, and visually appealing style Graduate School Application Process (as well as types of graduate programs and details regarding degree requirements for MS and PhD programs) How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results were distributed to the public at the Delaware State Fair in the form of fidget spinners (with Envision logo) and 4gB jump-drive bottle openers with all of the movies made by the students pre-loaded. During this public outreach experience, videos were shown on flat screen video monitors at the Ag Annex building at the Delaware Fair grounds. Participants were given colored shirts with the UD Envision logo and stood at the table distributing fidget spinners to children and jump drives to adults while engaging them by detailing their reserach projects. All participants also produced posters (and one oral presentation by the Ag Extension scholar) on their research at the UD Undergraduate Research Symposium. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We are actually into summer 2022 and have another 19 participants for this summer's cohort. We had initially accepted (20) participants, but one dropped out just prior to the start of the program due to health issues involving surgery. For summer 2021 and 2022, recruitment was done virtually, with (3) live Zoom sessions being made available at various times (lunchtime on a weekday, afternoon on a Saturday and a weekday evening) to capture the most number of interested potential applicants as possible. Given the developing reputation of the program, we have had applicants apply prior to any of the recruitment sessions and the number of applicants from institutions outside the region has grown each year.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Two factors increased the participation in UD Envision for summer 2021. First, due to the death of the director of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR) Summer Institute, a program funding 5 - 7 students of color from outside the University of Delaware and available to students nationwide, the PD combined this program with UD Envision, thus increasing the possible number of students to 15 -16. Second, faculty with funded research projects accepted students who applied to UD Envision and used these research monies to fund the students. Consequently, we were able to provide 18 funded research opportunities and 1 Agricultural Extension specialist for summer 2021. Each of these students performed research for summer 2021, 18 of them were live with one doing research data analysis virtually. All programmatic training, outreach and presentations were made for this summer, although the Undergraduate Reserach Symposium was held virtually.
Publications
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Progress 05/01/20 to 04/30/21
Outputs
Target Audience:This program did not initiate in 2020 due to the lockdown, theinability to host students on campus, and the inability of faculty mentors to be in laboratories. Changes/Problems:The major problem, of course, was the closure of the University due to the pandemic. We were poised to start the program and had purchased materials for the summer (jump drives andfidget spinners for Delaware State Fair event) and all recruitment visits had been made (to 5 HBCUs). For this year, participating faculty have also developed virtual experiences should the University need to prohibit on campus events. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Currently, we have completed three Zoom-based recruitment sessions and have recruited 54 applicants (application closed 3/15/21) and faculty mentors are making their selections (leveraging funds from other programs, we anticipate being able to support 20 students this year, twice the number projected in the grant). The University is planning for students to be hosted on campus, and trainings and activities are being scheduled for this year's cohort.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This program did not initiate in 2020 due to the lockdown, theinability to host students on campus, and the inability of faculty mentors to be in laboratories. Under support of the prior award, all recruitment visits were made and over 50 students had applied from the various insitutions. We were at the student selection process when the University of Delaware mandated closure of the campus with no housing or hosting of students on campus permitted.
Publications
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