Program gives students chance to Experience UGA

More than 450 Clarke County high school students had the opportunity to take a look behind the curtain of university science in two recent STEM-focused trips to University of Georgia laboratories and research facilities.

Ninth-graders from Clarke Central and Cedar Shoals high schools each had a day to visit a variety of science learning environments, from plant, marine animal and pathology laboratories to greenhouse and electron microscope facilities.

The high school visits were part of Experience UGA, an initiative designed to give students hands-on, curricular-based learning activities and to foster interest in the pursuit of higher education among Clarke County students who might not otherwise consider college as a possibility. This particular ninth-grade trip aimed to increase students' interests in the field of science, and was the second set of biology experience trips orchestrated in the last year by associate professor of microbiology Anna Karls. As evidenced by the reaction of some of the students, the program was a success.