Advice for High Schoolers interested in bees

Professor Snow suggests, Connect Locally and Learn!

Professor Burnham comments, a little bit of interest, curiosity, and drive go a long way!

Dr. Burnham has a lot of valuable advice for teens and young adults who would like to conduct bee-related research. He mentions, with a little bit of interest, one can do quality research, without many tools. For example, if you want to conduct research on the types of bumblebees species present locally, you can learn first how to identify 0-11 most common species of bumblebees and then go out with a notepad, pen, and a timer to log what kind of bees are sitting on the flowers, for how long, etc. What you need is curiosity and persistence to conduct this kind of research. However, in order to conduct scientific experiments, Dr. Burnham comments, a certain kind of expertise is required. He recommends you reach out to local universities and connect with people, and volunteer in labs to understand the experimental processes. He believes there are lots of opportunities for high schoolers in large university-based projects.

Concluding pointers from Dr. Burnham:

1. Curiosity and Drive!

2. Finding people to help you

3. Virus-related research is tricky and requires certain kinds of expertise and skill sets

4. However, some of the ecology-based questions require observational data

Further, he believes, a super interesting project might not require large laboratories but simply requires curiosity to learn more. After all, he says, “Science should be inclusive, not exclusive”. Suggestions from Professor Snow. For teens interested in beekeeping, Professor Snow suggests that you can connect to your local beekeeping clubs. In this regard, one of our local (New Haven) initiatives I mentioned in a previous interview has a 15-week beekeeper training program, and also offers a variety of other engagement activities, for example, if you like nature photography, they invite nature photographers to do their shoots on their property: https://www.huneebeeproject.com/youth-employment-training; https://www.huneebeeproject.com/volunteer If you are interested in bee-related research Professor Snow recommends reaching out to local labs and looking out for opportunities to shadow researchers to get exposed to various scientific techniques. Based on Professor Snow’s suggestion, I researched local labs for high schoolers interested in bees to connect to. I came across this article from Quinnipiac University, Hamden, CT regarding Professor Lawson’s work: https://www.qu.edu/quinnipiac-today/professor-and-students-save-the-bees-one-population-at-a-time-2021-07-16/. In fact, our very own Ms. Riya Miller whom I interviewed previously works with Professor Lawson. Thank you professors for your insightful comments and helpful suggestions!