Standing next to his poster, freshman Aarya Anaspure proudly waits to answer any questions about his group’s project. Jefferson is one of the only schools that offer a year-long research project in freshman year. “The IBEST project was one of the most unique and collaborative projects I worked on, and it taught me skills that I would use for many years to come. The project was challenging and communication was difficult at times, however, working together with friends strengthened our collaborative skills, and getting to output an actual result with our hard work felt good,” Anaspure said.
Presenting the results to their classmates, freshmen Kloe Conforti and Halima Bandarkar take a deep dive into the effects of soil salinity on microbes. Each IBEST(Integrated Biology English Statistics and Tech) team had a different theme, and students could pick what experiment they wanted to do within the theme, allowing for a variety of experiments across the freshman class. “My experience presenting was very comforting because the people who stayed and listened were actually interested in our presentation, making it easier to retain information in the moment,” Conforti said.
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