Undergraduates conducting field research

Undergraduate Summer Internship for Underrepresented Minorities sponsored by the South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center, LSU, and the Department of Geography and Anthropology was held July 22–28, 2018 Dr. Kristine DeLong co-lead the program with Victor Rivera-Monroy of the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences with help from graduate students Clay Tucker and Jacob Warner.  The internship sponsored ten students, including LSU undergraduate student Kalab Robertson, who visited three universities for one week each to learn about climate change science. The LSU week of the program including a visit to the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) in Chauvin, LA where they took a boat ride out to Timbalier Island to investigate changing barrier islands and mangroves, as well kayaking in the salt marsh while learning about coastal research. The next day the interns explored the Atchafalaya basin by boat and hiked into a bald cypress swamp where they took sediment cores that they compared to their cores from the barrier island. On the last day the interns explored the greater New Orleans area with Coastal Studies Institute Fellow Dr. Barry Keim to learn about the impacts of Hurricane Katrina and they learned about the levee system that protects New Orleans.