2014 Ag Discovery Class
Image Credit: Edwin Remsberg
Debating ethanol usage with senators on Capitol Hill. Witnessing Dupont researchers implant soybean embryos with DNA. Getting up close and personal with insects inside the entomology department at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.
It’s not your typical summer camp.
But for 20 high school students from seven different states who participated in this year’s Ag Discovery program at the University of Maryland, it was an intense, action-packed three weeks that could help shape their future careers.
“This has been possibly the best three weeks of my life,” said Caroline Leadmon, a rising junior from Hurricane, W.Va. with diverse academic interests including genetic engineering and statistics. “I feel like I’m much more prepared for when I decide to apply for schools and actually attend college.”
For the past nine years, the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (AGNR) at UMD has partnered with the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to bring Ag Discovery to College Park.
“Ag Discovery is designed to expose teens to careers related to agricultural sciences by teaching them about timely and important topics such as protecting America’s food supply from insects and disease, the role of regulation in genetically engineered organisms, the challenges of managing and resolving wildlife conflicts, as well as the legislative and public affairs aspect of agriculture,” said Evelyn Cooper, Ph.D., Acting Associate Dean for Academic Programs in the College of AGNR.
High school students from across the country apply to participate in Ag Discovery and earn three university level credits for completing the program. The teens interact with AGNR faculty and staff in workshops, seminars and classes on campus, and travel all over the Washington, D.C. region for fieldtrips and activities. This year, students visited the Port of Baltimore, USDA Headquarters, Capitol Hill, the National Zoo, Dupont Research Laboratory, the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge and the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.
“I definitely have a broader perspective of agriculture in general,” said Alexander Miller, a rising senior from College Park, Md. who would like to major in nutritional science, biology or chemistry at the university level. “The stereotype is always that it’s just about farming so now I have a much broader view of everything that’s related to that field.”
The young scholars got to experience life in a real college setting for the duration of the program, staying in dorm rooms and eating in the dining halls.
“Throughout the whole trip we would have all these crazy but interesting debates about what we’ve learned and we would just go on and on and on about it,” said Adilene Aguilar, a rising senior from Silver Spring, Md. who plans to pursue a career in medicine. “Being with (the other students) made the trip more interesting and awesome because some of them share the same views, some of them don’t, but we all related in some way.”
Along the way, the students were encouraged to build relationships and establish contacts with professionals to help guide them in their studies and when choosing a career.
“It’s like, wow, I can do this when I’m older,” said Cassie Cubilla, a rising sophomore from Garner, N.C. with an interest in biotechnology. “I feel closer to my future and I think I’m really going to take that from this trip that I can do stuff like this because I enjoy it and I think that’s the biggest thing I got and I think that’s really an important thing too.”
For more information on the Ag Discovery program, click here.
