2014

We are very pleased to share with you the 2014 edition of Earth, Wind, Sea, and Sky, showcasing the summer research of students from our three internship programs, Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS), the Undergraduate Internship Program at the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) and the Pre-College Internship Program (PRECIP) at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

These internship programs are designed to broaden participation in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)fields. Our country faces a chronic discrepancy between the demographic makeup of the STEM workforce and the country as a whole.We need a scientific workforce representative of the U.S. population, especially including members of groups who are already and will be disproportionally impacted by current and future environmental change. Our internships engage students in real-world projects at world-class science facilities, pair them with scientists and engineers who are at the cutting edge of their fields, and build community to support these future STEM professionals. We encourage students from groups that are historically under-represented to enter the ecological, atmospheric and related sciences, and help prepare them to succeed in graduate school and the professional workplace, often with advanced degrees.

We are very proud of our interns and the projects they managed to complete this summer. Their success would not be possible without the support and dedication of a number of people and organizations. The biggest thank you goes to our funders, our many partnering laboratories, and of course to our mentors.Thank you for your careful guidance of the interns, and for modeling what an exciting science or engineering career looks like! Without you these programs would not be possible.

We hope that you will enjoy this volume of abstracts. Please join us in congratulating our 2014 SOARS, NEON and PRECIP interns!

LIZ GOEHRING, Undergraduate Internship Program Director, NEON

REBECCA HAACKER-SANTOS, SOARS Director, UCAR Center for Science Education

SCOTT LANDOLT, PRECIP Director, NCAR