Middle-School Student Engagement in a Tick Testing Community Science Project.

ABSTRACT: Studies of tickborne illness have benefited from interactions between scientists and community members. Most participants in community science projects are well-educated adults, but there are anticipated benefits from engaging younger students in research. We evaluated whether an outreach experience for rural middle-school students promoted student interest in science and resulted in the generation of samples that could be used for tick testing to assess disease risk. Middle-school students from 78 Wisconsin communities developed interdisciplinary hypotheses about the spread of Lyme disease, identified ticks, and extracted DNA from ticks to assess the prevalence of pathogens Borrelia burgdorferi, Anaplasma phagocytophillium, and Babesia microti. As a result of this int

SUBMITTER: Prunuske A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8708189 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature