PRINCIPLES OF ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY-Gerard J. Tortora 15th Edition.pdf
Bee impressed at ACC Meeting of the Minds
1. News Center
SHARE THIS STORY
RELATED STORIES
Enterprising minds
Meeting the need for more
counselors
URECA: supporting
undergraduate research
Making music wins over
computer science majors
POPULAR STORIES
Exploring careers, making
connections
Painting robot lends surgeons a
hand
WFU once again a ‘Best Value’
Media Advisory: Clawson era
starts with $5 million in gifts for
football
Media Advisory: Wake Forest
to host TEDx: Daring to
Endeavor
A new dawn for the dean
RECENT POSTS
Media Advisory: Wake Forest
to host TEDx: Daring to
Endeavor
Media Advisory: Clawson era
starts with $5 million in gifts for
football
$5 million kicks off Clawson era
Media Advisory: ‘Embers and
Stars: The Story of Petr Ginz’
Exploring careers, making
ShareShareShare More
PUBLISHED: APRIL 3, 2013
Bee impressed at ACC Meeting of the
Minds
Wake Forest to showcase innovative student research from across the ACC
By WILL FERGUSON Office of Communications and External Relations
You can’t teach an old
dog new tricks, but this
might not be the case
for a honeybee.
Just ask David Hale (’15), a
sophomore biology major. Hale
has been studying the
relationship between brain
structure and cognitive function
in honeybees since the summer
after his freshman year.
He explains that as a honeybee ages, a pair of structures in its brain called
mushroom bodies grow larger. Larger mushroom bodies may give older bees
an advantage over their younger counterparts when it comes to learning and
memorizing new things like the color of certain flowers. In nature, this would
help older honeybees remember which flowers have more pollen, making
them better foragers for the hive.
Hale went to biology professor and
honeybee expert Susan Fahrbach to see
if she would help him design a scientific
study to investigate the phenomena.
With Fahrbach’s guidance, Hale
designed a basic IQ test to see if older
bees’ enlarged mushroom bodies make
them more adept at associating color
with reward.
After collecting bees of different ages
and fitting them into a harness fashioned
PRESENTATION SCHEDULE
Sophomore biology major
David Hale is leading a
scientific study on the
relationship between brain
structure and cognitive
function in honeybees. His
work will be showcased at
the Eighth Annual ACC
Meeting of the Minds
Undergraduate Research
Conference, taking place
April 4-6 at Wake Forest.
Search the siteACADEMICS NEWS EVENTS ADMINISTRATION ATHLETICS VISITING GIVING WIN
Admissions Financial Aid Schools Libraries Research Arts International Directories
Students Alumni Parents Faculty Staff
2. Admissions
Alumni
Arts & Culture
Athletics
Commencement
Community
Events
Faculty
Graduate School
Humanities
International
Media Advisory
Mentoring
National
Online
Personal and Career
Development
Philanthropy
President
Pro Humanitate
Provost
Recognition
Research
School of Business
School of Divinity
School of Law
School of Medicine
Speakers
Staff
Student
Sustainability
Teacher-Scholar
University Announcement
Valuing Diversity
Wake Forest College
Wake Will
connections
SECTIONS
Susan Fahrbach in the lab with David
Hale.
from a drinking straw, Hale exposed his
tiny subjects to bursts of blue or green
light from a projector to simulate
different colored flower patches.
A flash of blue light signaled a sugary
reward. A flash of green light signaled no
reward. Hale put each bee through 20
trials and then reversed the experiment.
His results showed that of the 64 bees that completed the test, older ones
proved more capable at associating color with reward. The younger bees, the
ones less than 10 days old, weren’t yet ready to learn.
Hale said putting together the experiment under Fahrbach’s guidance was
the most challenging aspect of his collegiate career to date. His mentor took
an available, yet hands-off approach, which allowed Hale to learn from his
own mistakes.
“Instead of telling me what to do, professor Fahrbach told me to think
outside of the box and come up with my own solution to the problems at
hand,” Hale said.
From Honeybees to Humans: Meeting of the Minds
It is exactly this outside the box thinking that will be showcased at the
Eighth Annual ACC Meeting of the Minds Undergraduate Research
Conference, taking place April 4-6 at Wake Forest.
The three-day event, funded in large part by revenue from athletic events
such as the ACC football championship, will showcase the work of nearly 100
undergraduate researchers from 12 ACC member schools.
“We are breaking down barriers between a group of the nation’s leading
universities so that students from across the ACC can learn from one
another and grow through shared experience,” said Richard Carmichael,
professor of mathematics at Wake Forest and the University’s Faculty
Athletic Representative.
Undergraduate REsearch and
Creative Activities (URECA) Center,
the Office of the Dean of the College
and the Office of the Provost are
organizing and sponsoring the event,
which rotates from campus to campus
each year.
“We are proud to celebrate the
mentored or independent scholarship
of such talented students from Wake Forest and other ACC institutions
renowned for their commitment to scholarly and creative work and their
dedication to outstanding undergraduate education,” said Jacquelyn Fetrow,
Dean of Wake Forest College.
The URECA Center provides student grants (summer fellowships include
$4,000 plus housing) and an administrative umbrella for mentored,
undergraduate research and encourages and supports high-quality
programs of great impact. Shannon Mihalko, associate professor of Health
and Exercise Science and Co-Director of the URECA Center, said the
program supports undergraduate scholars in all disciplines of Wake Forest
College.
The three-day event,
funded in large part by
revenue from athletic events
such as the ACC football
championship, will feature
the work of nearly 100
undergraduate researchers
from 12 ACC member
schools.
3. This year’s “Meeting of the Minds” also represents the first-ever ACC-
sponsored event including the University of Pittsburgh and the University of
Louisville.
“The expectation for undergraduates to participate in research has become
standard for admittance into good graduate schools,” said Dale B. Billingsley,
vice provost of Undergraduate Affairs and Enrollment Management at the
University of Louisville. “Starting early is a really good thing to do for
students who will be participating in research events like this for the rest of
their careers.”
Josh Courtney, an English and political science major, will showcase his work
analyzing linguistic trends in the writing of first-year Wake Forest students.
He said working with his mentor Laura Aull, an assistant professor of
English, not only gave him a realistic idea of what it is like to do research but
also has him considering a PhD in linguistics after graduation.
“You don’t realize the amount of time and effort that goes into this kind of
work until you do it,” Courtney said, adding that professor Aull is helping
him to get his work published in an academic journal.
If you are going to attend
A complete schedule of events is available on the conference website. Wake
Forest faculty known for their dedication to undergraduate research will give
keynote addresses.
Friday’s keynote speaker will be Miles Silman, Professor of Biology and
Director of the Center for Energy, Environment and Sustainability at Wake
Forest. A leader in the sustainability movement, Silman has taken dozens of
undergraduate students to the Amazon rainforest, where his work centers
on understanding species distributions, biodiversity, and the response of
forest ecosystems to climate and land use changes over time.
Saturday’s keynote speaker will be Christina Soriano, Associate Professor of
Dance. Her mentee, senior Cynthia Huang, will dance to demonstrate their
collaborative work on composer John Cage, which Soriano will address in her
presentation called “Choreographing Cage: A model for undergraduate
scholarship in the arts.”
SHARE:
Events Faculty Humanities Mentoring Research
Student Teacher-Scholar Wake Forest College
ShareShareShare More
1834 Wake Forest Road
The University
Academics
Administration
The Schools
Undergraduate
Graduate
WFU Affiliates
Wake Forest Baptist
Health
Helpful Links
Wake Will
Employment
