Progress 01/03/23 to 01/02/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Undergraduate students at the University of Texas at El Paso and El Paso Community College. Internship host organizations in El Paso county, involved in food and water systemsin El Paso county. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project is about providing internship training and opportunities in food and water systems. We trained 21 students in the first cohort of the internship program in spring and summer 2022. We developed and implemented an internship professional development course in spring 2023 and the first internships began in summer 2023. The student interns learned professional development skills such as resume-writing, interviewing strategies, literature review, and research poster composition. Students met over 15 water and food system professionals and learned to ask intelligent questions of these experts. The students also attended six lectures about the functioning of the food and water systems in the El Paso/Juarez region. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Our project evaluator has connected us with others involved in water and agriculture internship programs, resulting in an exchange of information about best practices and potential collaboration in new programs. We have also been sharing our work with local food and water system professionals who are not yet participating in PREE H2O to tell them about the benefits of the program and to recruit future internship host organizations.Once we complete our second internship cycle in summer 2024, we will seek out opportunities to present on our program at professional conferences. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The second cohort of interns will complete the professional development course in spring 2024 and the second internships will begin in summer 2024. Based on the evaluation reports and other results from the recruiting, professional development course, and internships for the first cohort, we will adjust our practices in each of these phases accordingly. We will recruit our third cohort of interns in fall 2024. We will recruit 2-4 more organizations to host internships in summer and fall 2024.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In 2023, PREE H2O addressed critical water and agriculture issues in the water-stressed Paso del Norte region, Texas by providing 21 undergraduate students from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and El Paso Community College (EPCC) opportunities for internships in regional food and water systems. The students acquired a transdisciplinary and transborder understanding ofthe sustainability of water and agriculture in the middle Rio Grande basin and professional opportunities in water and agriculture professions. We preparedthe students for their internships in a professional development course that involves training in professional skills and the regional food and water system context, along with optimizing internship assignments. Our internship cycle begins each fall with recruiting, followed by the internship professional development course in the spring and the internships over the summer. Our award began in January 2022, so that our first cohort of PREE H2O interns was recruited in fall 2022. This cohorttookthe PREE H2O professional development course in spring 2023 and completed their PREE H2O internships in summer 2023. We recruited for the second PREE H2O cohort of interns in fall 2023. The 15-week PREE H2O professional development course was launched by the project leadership team in spring 2023. The goal of the professional development course is to prepare the interns for their summer internships.The class met once a week in the evening to accommodate student schedules. Lesson plans were developed andimplementedfor each weekto achieve these objectives: provide a basic understanding of regionalfood and water systems provide an understanding of the function and projects available at internship host organizations provide professional skills useful for the summer internship and future career goals Activities included interactive presentations by course instructors on regional food and water systems workshopping on professional skills development: networking, resumes, interviews, and science communication presentations by internship host organizations on the function of their organization within food and water systems and on opportunities for interns internship assignments: ranking by students, interviews, ranking by organizations, and placement outside course assignments included weekly journals, drafting and improving resumes,and drafting and improving poster and poster presentation The course requirements included attending and participating in every class session and completing every course assignment satisfactorily including in-class activities and outside class assignments. Following the professional development class in spring 2023, 19 interns began and completed internships at these organizations. Texas A&M Agrilife Extension, El Paso County Texas A&M Agrilife Research, El Paso Center El Paso Water Insights El Paso Science Center High Desert Native Plants Keystone Botanical Gardens Frontera Land Alliance Growing with Sara Farm International Boundary and Waters Commission The requirements and expectations for the 10-week summer internships were Work 20 hours/week for the internship organization (200 hours total). Weekly in-person/online meetings with assigned UTEP or EPCC faculty mentor. A poster summarizing the internship project. Interns presented their posters at the UTEP Campus Office of Undergraduate Research Initiatives (COURI) Symposium in August 3 2023. Other deliverables as required by the internship organization. The projects and tasks covered in the internships were varied, given the range of organizations to which the interns were assigned. Our PREE H2O project website includes the posters that were produced by the interns in summer 2023,for detail on the internships. Other activities included the following. The project leadership team met once weekly or biweekly to plan, review progress towards project goals,and assign tasks. The team met frequently with the project evaluator. The internship recruiting strategy was refined by improved outreach to faculty at UTEP and EPCC and by visiting and presenting in more key courses in fall 2023. The recruiting efforts in fall 2023 resulted in 25 applications, 23 interviews, and 21 interns admitted (11 from UTEP and 10 from EPCC). The project website was re-developed to be more user friendly and re-launched. The internship application process developed in 2022 was used again for 2023. We secured internship positions for the second cohort of interns. Our external evaluator, Dr. Manual Piña, submitted 9 evaluation reports in 2023, based on written responses from and interviews with (a) the students throughout the spring professional development and the summer internships, (b) the PREE H2O leadership team and the internship host organizations. All reports have been quite positive. These reports included recommendations for further improvement, all of which have been implemented in 2023. There is not enough room to include the text from the report, but the PI (Alex Mayer) would be happy to provide copies of these reports upon request.
Publications
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Progress 01/03/22 to 01/02/23
Outputs
Target Audience:Undergraduate students at the University of Texas at El Paso and El Paso Community College. Internship host organizations in El Paso county. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project is about providing internship training and opportunities in food and water systems. We admitted 21 students into first cohort of the internship program in fall 2022. We developed an internship professional development course and secured internship positions in summer and fall 2022. The first cohort of interns will take the professional development course in spring 2023 and the first internships will begin in summer 2023. The student interns learned professional development skills such as resume-writing, interviewing strategies, elementary statistics, graphing, literature review, and research poster composition. Students met over 15 water and food system professionals and learned to ask intelligent questions of these experts. The students also attended six lectures about the functioning of the food and water systems in the El Paso/Juarez region. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Once we complete the internship cycle in summer 2023, we will seek out opportunities to present on our program at professional conferences, as well as sharing our work with local food and water system professionals who are not yet participating in PREE H2O. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The first cohort of interns will take the professional development course in spring 2023 and the first internships will begin in summer 2023. Based on the evaluation reports and other results from the recruiting, professional development course, and internships for the first cohort, we will adjust each of these phases accordingly. We will form our professional advisory committee in summer 2023. We will recruit our second cohort of interns in fall 2023. We will recruit 2-4 more organizations to host internships in summer and fall 2023.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
PREE H2O addresses critical water and agriculture issues in the water-stressed Paso del Norte region, Texas by providing 100 undergraduate students from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and El Paso Community College (EPCC) internships in regional food and water systems. The students will acquire a transdisciplinary and transborder understanding of the sustainability of water and agriculture in the middle Rio Grande basin and professional opportunities in water and agriculture professions. We are preparing the students for their internship in a professional development course that involves training in professional skills and the regional food and water system context, along with optimizing internship assignments. Our internship cycle begins each fall with recruiting, followed by the internship professional development course in the spring and the internships over the summer. Since our award began in January 2022, our first cohort of interns was recruited in fall 2022. This cohort will take the professional development course in spring 2023 and will begin their internships in summer 2023. Our efforts during 2022 included the following. The project leadership team, including the project evaluator, met once weekly or biweekly to plan, review progress towards project goals and assign tasks. The internship recruiting strategy was defined by the project leadership team, including developing recruiting materials, outreach to faculty at UTEP and EPCC, and visiting and presenting in key courses. A project website was developed and launched. The internship application process was developed, including required application materials, an on-line application form, interview questions, and application evaluation rubrics. The recruiting efforts resulted in 35 applications, 27 interviews, and 21 interns admitted (11 from UTEP and 10 from EPCC). The professional development course was outlined by the project leadership team. The goal of the professional development course is to prepare the interns for their summer internship through these objectives: provide a basic understanding of food and water systems provide an understanding of the function and projects available at internship host organizations provide professional skills useful for the summer internship and future goals The course requirements include: attending and participating in every class session completing every course assignment satisfactorily, including weekly journals, resumes, a poster and outside class assignments Materials, course activities, and a class schedule have been prepared in detail for implementation in spring 2023. Ten local organizations were recruited to host a total of 27 internship positions. Texas A&M Agrilife Extension, El Paso County Texas A&M Agrilife Research, El Paso Center El Paso Water Insights El Paso Science Center High Desert Native Plants Keystone Botanical Gardens Frontera Land Alliance Growing with Sara Farm International Boundary and Waters Commission Rio Grande Council of Governments In spring 2023, these organizations will participate in the professional development course and the interns will be assigned to the organizations. Institutional Review Board approval was obtained at UTEP for surveying students as part of the project evaluation process. Our project evaluator developed instruments for the surveys. He also provided us with a mid-term evaluation with an assessment of our progress and recommendations for the next year's program activities. Our external evaluator, Dr. Manual Piña, has submitted three evaluation reports (1/5/2023, 1/25/2023, 5/2/2023). All reports have been quite positive but have included recommendations for further improvement. There is not enough room to include the text from the report, but the PI (Alex Mayer) would be happy to provide copies of these reports upon request.
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