LUQ Schoolyard teachers and students participate in training week of the VT EPSCoR RACC program, June, 2015


Elliot Lopez, together with students Kristopher Santa and Keisha Mestey from the Juan Ponce de Leon High School of Florida, Puerto Rico, and Glenda Lee Almodóvar, together with students Grecia C. Izquierdo Torres and José G. Izquierdo Torres from Áurea E. Quiles Claudio High School of Guánica, Puerto Rico, participated in the High School Student and Teachers Training Week of the VT EPSCoR Research on Adaptation to Climate Change (RACC) Program. This program integrates high school teachers and students who participate as a team in a research effort.

Both Guánica's and Florida's student-teacher teams attended a residential training week from June 22-26, 2015 at the Saint Michael’s College campus in Winooski Park, Colchester, Vermont. During this week, they were introduced to the interactions of climate, environment, society and land use policy involved in the RACC research program, learned field-based research skills, and launched their research projects, which they will carry out from July, 2015 through March 2016. The Florida team's research topic is related to macro-invertebrates as water quality indicators in a northern karst stream in PR, and the Guánica team will investigate the Presence of heavy metal in soil on the Guánica Bay. In April, 2016, the teams will return to Vermont to share their findings at the annual VT EPSCoR Student Research Symposium, where they will present a poster or an oral presentation.

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