Student Challenge Awards Program Expeditions are designed exclusively for Student Challenge Award recipients and go into the field each year between June 15 and August 15. Expeditions focus on physical and natural sciences and range from astrophysics to wetlands monitoring. Most projects involve a combination of field and laboratory research.
Students participate as field assistants working alongside the lead scientists (Principal Investigators) and research staff, and also learn about the research activities of other scientists on site or nearby. Data collected by these student teams contribute to solving major scientific questions; as students acquire skills and knowledge, they also contribute to cutting edge research.
At the links below, you can explore some recent Student Challenge Awards Program expeditions, download copies of the briefings sent to students to prepare them for their field experience, and even read archived copies of blogs written by students and research team members while on their expeditions.
(The free Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to read the PDF expedition briefings.)
Reef Fish of the Virgin Islands
St. John, US Virgin Islands
Icelandic Glaciers
Skaftafell National Park, Iceland
Monitoring on the Mississippi
Alice L. Kibbe Life Sciences Station, Illinois
Mapping a Century of Change in the San Jacinto Mountains
Blogs
San Jacinto Mountains, California
Tundra Wetland Ecology
Blogs
Churchill Northern Studies Centre, Canada
Transient Phenomena in Astrophysics
Blogs 2008 /
2007
Los Alamos National Laboratory and Fenton Hill Observatory, New Mexico
Is Sea level Rising?
Blogs /
Team Briefing
Eastern Shore of Virginia
Tectonics and Volcanism in the Rio Grande Rift
Sangre de Cristo, Jemez, and Sandia Mountains; Espanola and Albuquerque Basins, New Mexico
Humans, Bison, and Climate Change
Blogs /
Team Briefing
Challis Kill Site, Custer Country, Idaho
Caterpillars and Climate Change
Blogs
2006 -
2007 -
2008 /
Team Briefing
Southwestern Research Station, Portal, Arizona
Ecology of Caribbean Termites
Blogs /
Team Briefing
St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands