9424079 As host institution, Lehigh University will offer ten undergraduates a summer research experience in freshwater ecology at the Lacawac Sanctuary in NE Pennsylvania. Students will be recruited broadly from many institutions, with special effort to include minority students. The program will be an expansion and intensification of an existing internship program offered since 1988 through Lehigh's Pocono Comparative Lakes Program. Financial support will go mainly to student stipends and housing costs. The program will involve a complete research experience--including independent study at the student's home institution--to consist of proposal development, research design, summer research, data analysis and database documentation, and oral and written reports. Research topics will closely tie-in to projects of a series of designated potential summer mentors, who have on-going studies at the field site. This will ensure that students are exposed to current issues in ecological research, and to modern techniques and equipment. Particular emphasis will be paid to instructing students in effective standards for recording and documenting data and in ethical issues encountered in scientific research, such as questions of ownership of data from publicly funded research and ultimate authorship of publications. Through weekly meetings with mentors, research seminars, recreational opportunities, and the natural history and conservation program of the Lacawac Sanctuary itself, interns will receive a broad appreciation of the role of scientific research in the broader scheme of environmental conservation.
