Project HEAT kicks off amid record-setting heat wave

Today we welcomed 21 students participating in the Dean’s Future Scholars (DFS) program for a 2-week workshop we organized with the Raggio Research Center (RRC).

Dubbed Project HEAT (hot environments, animals, and temperature), the workshop will provide students hands-on scientific experiences organized around the theme of temperature: How temperatures vary in space in time, why temperature matters for animals and humans, how they cope with extreme temperatures, and the various ways scientists measure and analyze temperature data. Fittingly, the workshop began as Reno (and much of the Western US) experienced record-setting heat. We were mostly inside today. However, the students did get to experience the heat later in the afternoon as they practiced GPS navigation, which we’ll need later in the workshop when students carry out their own mini research projects involving micro temperature sensors.

Slated to run for the next three summers, the workshop is the centerpiece of the educational component of our NASA-funded Desert Birds New Investigator project that began earlier this year. Its all hands on deck at LCB for this workshop and it is great to also be working with DFS as well as with Jacque Ewing-Taylor and our outstanding graduate research assistant Kerry Howard.