COLLEGE STATION, Texas, June 10 (UPI) -- Texas A&M University says it received a National Science Foundation grant to enable students from non-research schools to develop investigational skills.
The three-year, $550,000 grant was awarded to Professors Chris Houser and Anthony Cahill. The money will allow students from non-research U.S. colleges and universities to have the opportunity to develop essential skills in designing, carrying out and delivering research.
The students will work at Texas A&M's Soltis Center for Research and Education near San Isidro, Costa Rica, in field and laboratory research focused on the Costa Rican cloud forest water cycle.
"This opportunity gives students the chance to experience the excitement of being immersed in the practice of active inquiry and research," Cahill said.
The students will investigate mechanisms that lead to climate change, the transfer of water and energy through the forest canopy, the changes of the flow of water within the ecosystem and the cycling of carbon and water through biological processes, officials said.
Other Texas A&M faculty members in the program include Sarah Brooks and Gunnar Schade, atmospheric sciences; Bryan Boulanger, Anthony Cahill, Gretchen Miller and Emily Zechman civil engineering; Chris Houser, Andrew Millington, Steven Quiring and Brendan Roark, geography; Kevin McInnis, soil and crop sciences; and Georgianne Moore and Mark Tjoelker, ecosystem science and management.
