The project will, in each of three year's funding, bring seven undergraduates to the California Academy of Sciences for a 10-week summer session in the Academy's Summer Systematics Institute. Recruitment will be on a national level, with emphasis given to minority and female students in science. Each prospective intern will apply to work with an Academy curator on a research project. Successful applicants will take part in formal lectures in systematic biology, tours of each of the Academy's nine research departments and research seminars in systematic biology by scientists outside the Academy. Students will work on directed projects circumscribed so that an introduction to the problem and organisms to be studied, as well as data collection, interpretation, and dissemination can be accomplished. Each student will produce a manuscript of the project's results, in the form of a scientific paper, and make an oral presentation of their results to their peers. Evaluations of interns and participating Academy staff will be conducted each year to fine tune/improve the Institute for the succeeding years. Interns will also be brought back to the Academy for additional work, to publish their findings, and to present their results at professional scientific meetings.
