About the C3 Program
Our core goals of the C3 Program are to support undergraduates working in collaborative, interdisciplinary life sciences labs that also use computational methods, and to engage these students in training to improve broad communication skills.
Our leadership team includes faculty and staff in the University of Missouri Bond Life Sciences Center, Office of Undergraduate Research, School of Journalism, MU Informatics Institute, and Office of Science Outreach.
To learn more, check out the information available on this website, follow us on Twitter @c3program, or reach us at mulscc3program@missouri.edu.
The C3 Program is supported in part by a grant to the University of Missouri from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute through the Precollege and Undergraduate Science Education Program.
Undergraduate Research and Training
Hughes Research Fellows (HRFs) are supported for a calendar year to work on scientific research projects and meet weekly in to discuss science communication. During summer, each meeting introduces new topic on journalistic practices and its applications to science communication. During the academic year, HRFs are joined by Science Journalism Interns (SJIs), journalism majors interested in science reporting, and meetings focus on articles, photo essays and videos in progress. HRFs work with graduate students to learn how to use cameras, audio recorders, and editing software to produce multimedia projects, and post weekly blog entries, writing and photojournalism assignments on SciXchange.
Hughes Research Apprentices (HRAs) are freshmen interested in participating in life sciences research. HRAs are recruited during their senior year and represent some of the top MU applicants. HRAs attend a 5-day summer orientation where they learn fundamental lab techniques and principles of experimental design; hear about research lab organization and function from faculty, grad students, postdocs and technicians; learn about research careers in academia, industry, and agriculture; and complete lab safety training. At the end of Orientation HRAs identify possible research interests and are matched with host labs where they will work during the academic year.
Additional annual opportunities for undergraduates include the Science Journalism Forum, Summer Biomedical Informatics Institute, and a computational research conference.
Faculty Development
For faculty development, Mentors-in-Residence are invited to MU to share their views and discuss effective approaches in training and mentoring undergraduates. For graduate students and postdocs, we offer Entering Mentoring, a successful discussion-based workshop series designed to help develop positive student-mentor connections.
K-12 Outreach
The Partnership for Research and Education in Plants (PREP) Program brings together Missouri high school biology teachers, students, and plant scientists to form a scientific learning community focused on promoting knowledge and discovery. We offer one-day workshops for teachers in two areas: student driven research and experimental design (using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana), and scientific investigation dealing with quantitative data (using DNA and protein sequence analysis examples). Teacher participants and their students partner with MU plant research scientists through the year. The scientists provided resources and support to guide students through experiments and scientific concepts.
We offer a weeklong summer camp for high school students as part of the 4H Summers@Mizzou program. Our camp engages students with investigations focused on collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, and communication using plant science concepts. Students film their experiences, learn how to edit video in the SciXchange Media Lab, and present final versions to all students and parents at the Summers@Mizzou wrap-up session.