Science STEM

TERF participant highlighted on Kirkwood High School website

KHS Student Participates and Presents at Research Symposium

KHS senior Ellen Sulser presented along side Adam Vorel, a junior at Eureka High School, the results of their summer ecological research at the Washington University St. Louis (WUSTL) fall 2013 Undergraduate Research Symposium on Oct. 26. Sulser and Vorel are members of the Tyson Environmental Research Fellowships (TERF) program. The students braved ticks, chiggers, and poison ivy during four weeks working in the field alongside university faculty, staff, post-doctoral researchers, and undergraduates at Tyson Research Center in Eureka, MO. The TERF program provides a cultural apprenticeship in university-based environmental biology research and training in scientific communication. It is an advanced summer experience modeled on the undergraduate research internships offered at Tyson.

For several Sunday afternoons in September and October, the TERF students gathered to work on data analysis and poster construction with guidance from their research mentors. The resulting eleven TERF posters were indistinguishable from those generated by undergraduates and made up 5% of the total posters in the research symposium. Many visitors were surprised to learn the TERF students were high school students after hearing their well-practiced research presentations.

Sulser and Vorel’s project was researching and explaining multi-stemmed trees in the Tyson Forest Dynamics Plot.


See this story on the Kirkwood High School website.

Learn more about SIFT & TERF, unique science education programs that connect high school students directly to field research scientists, allowing for deep and transparent career exploration.