Environmental Health Laboratory InternAt — CSUF - College of Health and Human Development

The intern will be responsible for conducting laboratory experiments to understand and quantify pollution sources of an creek located in a suburban environment. The intern will learn, develop, and master laboratory skills including: water filtration, bacterial culturing, spectrophotometry, DNA extraction, RNA extraction, and qPCR among other molecular and microbiological laboratory techniques.

Tasks:

The intern will demonstrate the learning outcomes by successfully completing each of the following throughout the internship:
1. Maintaining a laboratory notebook.
2. Maintaining a clean and safe laboratory working environment.
3. Field sampling to collect water samples.
4. Inputting data into appropriate statistics programs (e.g., MS Excel or similar)
5. Providing laboratory write-ups of completed experiments
6. Providing an interim report of current research progress due on the 8th week of the internship.
6. Providing a final report of current research progress due prior to completion of the internship.

Training:

To help the student achieve the proposed learning outcomes, I will train the student in each laboratory method using Peyton's four-step approach which includes (1) demonstrating the technique, (2) deconstructing the technique to the student, (3) having the student describe the technique while performing under my direct supervision, and (4) having the student perform the technique independently.
I will also train the student on proper data analysis techniques for the data that is collected throughout the internship period using appropriate statistical analysis and software like Microsoft Excel.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the internship, the student will be able to:
1. Analyze a water sample for microbiological quality.
2. Perform qPCR and analyze qPCR data on specific gene targets.
3. Quantify water pollution sources in a water sample.