Undergraduate Research at Community Colleges: Equity, Discovery, and Innovation

Abstract

Among these is a project at CUNY's LaGuardia Community College, where students collect water samples from nearby Newtown Creek, one of the most polluted superfund sites in the country, and test them for trace metals, dissolved oxygen, fecal matter nitrates, and sulfates, uploading results to a regional database maintained by a local citizen science organization funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). In another representative project, students at Maricopa's Estrella Mountain Community College study the habitat, migration patterns, and mating habits of burrowing owls. Through such vivid and detailed descriptions, Hensel provides critical insight into the complex work that undergraduate researchers and their faculty mentors are conducting on community college campuses throughout the country.