The latest PodCALS podcast from the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) highlights the school’s recent efforts to seek out high school students with an interest in science, agriculture, and global food security for an opportunity to explore the big time science and discovery opportunities that exist at UW CALS through the World Food Prize-Wisconsin Youth Institute event.

The one-day program, held April 18th, will bring together a group of highly motivated high school students for a day of immersion into the life of a UW CALS researcher. Participants will visit with CALS professors, tour their labs, and hear about the many ways their work relates to agriculture and food. Students will also break into smaller discussion groups, discuss their personal research interests with faculty and staff members, and participate in a variety of mini-experiments related to agriculture and food security.

The top participants in the April 18th event will qualify to participate in the World Food Prize Global Youth Institute, held October 13-15, in Des Moines, Iowa, where they will join 400 other outstanding high school students and teachers from across the United States and around the world for an exciting three-day program to interact with Nobel and World Food Prize Laureates and the more than 1,000 global leaders from 65 countries attending the World Food Prize‘s annual international symposium. By participating in the Global Youth Institute event, students will become eligible to apply for a prestigious Borlaug-Ruan International Internship or USDA Wallace-Carver Fellowship.

“Eligible students could be current FFA members who really enjoy exploring that hands on work with agriculture, but it could also be a student who is enjoying a biology or chemistry class and really likes to get in to understanding the interworking of how science impacts food production, or students interested in looking at the humanitarian side of food issues,” said Cindy Fendrick, UW CALS Department of Academic Affairs, in the podcast. “Teachers can utilize it in their classrooms and have all students write this paper or even do maybe a poster presentation and then they can have the ability to kind of do a little self-competition within their classroom and then select those that can join us for the April 18th event.”

Students interested in participating must complete an application, which includes a 2-3 page research paper on food security in a developing nation of their choice. The instructions and requirements for the paper are available here, and applications are due online by March 21st.

Listen to the full podcast here:
UW PodCALS on Wisconsin Youth Institute