<p>Where are high school students doing research? Is this common for high school students living near universities, or are most high achieving students finding research opportunities? If so, where and how??</p>
<p>Where do kids who do not live near universities find research opportunities? Our high school is just lucky to have science labs for their own classes.</p>
<p>Yes, many positions are with local universities. You could also try local companies (eg. computers, engineering, biomedical, etc.).</p>
<p>Here are a few summer programs, but they are very competitive:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.clarkscholars.ttu.edu/[/url]”>http://www.clarkscholars.ttu.edu/</a></p>
<p>[NIH</a> Summer Internship Program in Biomedical Research (High School Students)](<a href=“http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/funding/training/redbook/hsnihbio.htm]NIH”>http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/funding/training/redbook/hsnihbio.htm)</p>
<p>[Summer</a> Student Program - The Jackson Laboratory](<a href=“http://education.jax.org/summerstudent/index.html]Summer”>http://education.jax.org/summerstudent/index.html)</p>
<p>Also RSI and the Cornell Nanobiotechnology internship program, both extremely competitive.</p>
<p>D1 attended UC Davis’s Young Scholar Program</p>
<p>What are the options for students living in rural areas that lack both universities and research-type companies? Are there any online research mentoring programs that teach how to begin meaningful research? </p>
<p>Our school’s science fair is pretty much non-existent, and while the school’s classroom labs are functional, because of the large volume of students using them, sustained research is not feasible. There is also understandably precious little time for teachers to serve as mentors.</p>
<p>Go to the site for Society for Science and the Public. They coordinate two of the major high school science competitions (ISEF and STS). </p>
<p>[Society</a> for Science & the Public - Science Resources](<a href=“http://www.societyforscience.org/Page.aspx?pid=291]Society”>http://www.societyforscience.org/Page.aspx?pid=291)</p>
<p>They have this search engine for finding programs by state…and some may be available on line:
[Society</a> for Science & the Public - Page](<a href=“http://apps.societyforscience.org/science_training_programs/]Society”>http://apps.societyforscience.org/science_training_programs/)</p>
<p>Even if your child isn’t interested in a competition, there is some very good information on their site about conducting research while in HS.</p>
<p>Since I live in Atlanta, I was able to do research at one of Georgia Tech’s bioengineering labs during my senior year.</p>
<p>My husband does research at a med school. He had a high school student working for him last year. The student works with one of the grad students in the lab. It wasn’t set up through any program, the student just asked.</p>
<p>Some students (and personally I am more impressed by them) figure out interesting projects to do that don’t require working in someone else’s lab.</p>
<p>Here’s a pretty inspiring story about an Intel finalist who worked out of a storage closet in his school. <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/09Rintel.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/09Rintel.html</a></p>
<p>even if not close to a big university, maybe one of the smaller campuses near your rural area could help. check out websites of the professors and see if any are doing research or what they have done research in in the past. Your child could email them.</p>
<p>another site that might give some ideas is sciencebuddies.com If your child wants they can also apply to be a mentor at that site and help other kids with projects and homework.</p>
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<p>I should add that this was a live-in-the-dorm summer program.</p>
<p>Westchester County, NY (and possibly other counties in NY, I don’t know) has a very good program in some of its high schools; in my daughter’s school, there is a teacher who teaches a class (3x/wk) which students must apply to get into. In it, over the course of three years, each student reads many articles to determine what he/she wants to do, finds someone in his or her area that does such research, and then applies to that person to be mentored (since this is a very kind gesture on the part of the mentor, it sometimes takes quite a while to find someone willing to work with the student). The scientist/mentor oversees the student during the summer’s work (my D is working in a lab in July, for 90 hours or so); the student continues to work over the course of the following year, in the lab as possible, doing additional work as possible, designing their project, and then implement it in the lab the next summer, with the goal of doing original research (usually suggested by the mentor’s own continuing research). The fall of senior year, the student writes a 25-page paper detailing his or her work, and presents it. It’s a great program; students choose work they want to do, learn a great deal (ranging from what they actually do in the lab, to writing a substantial, professional paper, to learning how one behaves in a professional environment, writing emails, making phone calls, dressing, etc.), and have a strong sense of achievement by the end. I feel very lucky that the program has not been cut.</p>
<p>As long as there’s a good and committed science teacher - who knows the basics of experimental design, basic statistics, etc. - a student can research and develop a project on their own. Projects can be simple (as Alex’s and Maria’s described on the last page of the link in #8) as long as they’re well thought out and done with rigor. Now in the days of email, many scientists are happy to answer questions and make suggestions - if a student reads an article relevant to his project he or she should certainly get in touch with the authors.</p>
<p>S1 contacted a professor at the local flagship. He went over once a week to discuss the various articles the prof had given him to read. As for the actual research, he did it at home, on the beach, under a tree, and showed up with a full draft of the paper for the prof to read by the end of August. The reading he did with the prof supplemented his good grounding in the field and prompted S to go searching for other papers. The prof was helpful in getting his hands on some of the more obscure sources.</p>
<p>Theoretical projects lend themselves better to independent work vs. a project that requires a lab. S1 would keel over and die if he had to work in a lab. Theoretical stuff? Bring it on.</p>
<p>Colleges and competitions know that not everyone attends a school that offers in-house research resources. S1 met the young man profiled in the NYT article and he is a great guy. The HS where he worked is literally half a block away from my BIL’s house.</p>