Sarah Bounds
Oklahoma State University
Mentoring Experience
My goal with mentoring students is to provide them with the opportunity and guidance to pursue their interest in research.
Trey
Trey is a freshman at a rural high school in Oklahoma. He joined the Wilder lab in the fall of 2016 to work on a research project for his school's science competition, and to learn about the research process and experimental design. Trey's research project used the Brussels's sprout-cabbage white butterfly study system to examine how the timing of nutrient additions to host plants affects herbivore growth. Throughout his project, I assisted Trey in his experimental setup and taught him techniques for data collection, as well as provided general guidance. He completed a poster on his research, which I helped him prepare and practice his presentation. He presented the poster in the science competition against 9 other students and won first place.
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Trey also competed in the Junior Sciences and Humanities Symposium (JHSH). Students from Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma compete in JHSH, which is part of an established national program of the Academy of Applied Science and the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force. Trey completed a manuscript over his research project and presented an oral presentation, for which he won first place and an expense-paid trip to the National JSHS in San Diego, CA.
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After completing his project for the science competition and JHSH, Trey started another project that he is currently working on in the lab. This project will examine how the method used to apply nitrogen to plants, either as powder added to the soil or as a liquid solution provided to an individual leaf, affects caterpillar growth.
Reagan
Reagan is a freshman microbiology major who joined the Wilder lab in the fall of 2016 as part of Oklahoma State's Freshman Research Scholar program. This program allows freshmen at OSU to extend their education beyond the classroom by getting involved in research. Students write a manuscript over their project and present a research poster at the Life Science Freshman Research Scholars Symposium in the spring. Reagan's project examined how prey type influences web-building in the Southern Black Widow spider. I provided guidance to her as she wrote the research proposal for her project, as well as the final manuscript. I also helped Reagan prepare her research poster.
