Pathways to STEM 2022
January 2022
Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, and in collaboration with Citrus College, Oak Crest Institute of Science hosted its first Pathways to STEM undergraduate students in its newly-formed student incubator.
The students, guided by a group of peer mentors, self organized to isolate strains of pseudomonas bacteria from soil collected in their local area.
The students learned microbiological and biochemical methods and were able to isolate and identify at least 6 strains of pseudomonas.
Participants: Alexander Gomez, Arianna Swindle, Jared Van Der Loo, Matthew Luna, Nathan Palmer, Olivia Hernandez, Omar Masri, Reina Perez, Vanessa Rosas, Victoria Drake
Peer Mentors: Alijah Navalta, Sarahai Jimenez, Lisa Wang
Working as a team, and sharing tasks, the students were not only able to learn laboratory skills, but they also put their results into a formal paper which was published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Gomez, Alexander, Sarahai Jimenez, Arianna Swindle, Lisa Wang, Matthew Luna, Nathan Palmer, Victoria Drake, Omar Masri, Alijah Navalta, Reina Perez, Vanessa Rosas, Jared Van Der Loo, Marianne Smith & Paul Webster. 2023. A Wild Pseudomonas has appeared: An Exercise in Bacterial Identification. International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities. May; 15(1):1-12. doi: http://doi.org/10.7710/2168-0620.0397.