Five Middle Tennessee State University graduate students will encounter an exchange of international scientific ideas for the next two weeks.

Bound for Chile in South America and joined in Miami, Fla., by two University of Puerto Rico grad students, the MTSU group will work with students at two Santiago high schools for one week and fellow researchers at the University of Santiago the next, said biology professor Anthony Farone, who will accompany them on the trip.

The five MTSU grad students are Nicholas Chamberlain of Franklin, Tenn.; Ashley Cole and Corbett Ouellette of Murfreesboro; Rachel Lytle of Brentwood, Tenn.; and Eric Vick of Nashville.

The group left Aug. 9 from Nashville International Airport.

The venture is part of a National Science Foundation-sponsored GK-12 grant that sends the grad students to teach and perform research in Davidson and Rutherford county high school classrooms.

MTSU graduate students, faculty and staff prepare for a two-week trip to Chile for an exchange of international scientific ideas. From left are Eric Vick of Nashville; Rachel Lytle of Brentwood, Tenn.; Nicholas Chamberlain of Franklin, Tenn.; biology professor Anthony Farone; grant coordinator Karen Case; and Ashley Cole and Corbett Ouellette of Murfreesboro. The MTSU bears and pom-poms are among the gifts the group is taking for their hosts, and new friends and associates. (MTSU photo by News and Media Relations)

As an added component in the final year of the grant, the National Science Foundation provided $65,000 for MTSU to take the effort to an international level.

“Our GK-12 Fellows (grad students) will be teaching and observing science,” said Farone, who will be joined on the trip by MTSU’s Karen Case, who coordinates the grant, and Rey Mora, a health science teacher at Nashville’s Hillwood High School.

While in Chile, the group will visit three biotech companies. They’ll also go to the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, Chile’s capital city, for a panel discussion with Chilean scientists on “our project in STEM education,” Farone said.

STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The MTSU students spoke with enthusiasm about the trip.

“I’m excited about the trip. I’ve never been outside the country and I’ve never been to a scientific conference,” Ouellette said. “Now I get to do two things rolled up in one.

“I’m excited about the food and culture, going to the embassy and getting to know more people that will allow me to have a more global perspective.”

Cole said she is looking forward “to establishing an international presence” with the high school students and “wanting to help us build a relationship with the University of Santiago.”

Vick, who conducts DNA research, said he hopes to meet with his international research partner “to set up a collaboration there. With the schools, they do more advanced study. I’ll be working with seniors, but will not be doing DNA manipulation until they are equipped to handle the concept.”

All the students completed a two-week crash course in conversational Spanish through associate professor Shelley Thomas’ Center for Accelerated Language Acquisition. Lytle, who had four years of the language at Father Ryan High School in Nashville, said she will be “kind of an interpreter.”

“I’m not so good at speaking (Spanish), but I can tell you what people are saying,” she said, adding that she will be interested to compare U.S. and Chilean high school classrooms.

Carmichael said he wants to see how the University of Santiago research lab is set up and managed “compared to how we do it at MTSU.”

Farone, who served as the co-leader of the project along with his wife, Mary, an associate professor in biology, said the trip “is a big endeavor.”

“If all goes well,” Anthony Farone added, “it’s going to be a continuing project with more students. Hopefully, we’ll go back in January and continue what we’ve started.”

— Randy Weiler (randy.weiler@mtsu.edu)