RAP provides a taste of research, campus life

Twenty high school students from eight states and the District of Columbia participated in the Research Apprenticeship Program.

Jada Bell, a high school junior from Fargo, N.D., may have spent a month on the campus of N.C. A&T this summer, but her research took her a world away.

As a participant in the Research Apprentice Program in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, she spent four weeks, from mid-June to mid-July, researching the effects of the trade war with China on U.S. commodity crops, including soybeans, beef and pork.

“I found out that tariffs have a big effect on farmers here,” she said. “Because of the government’s tariff restrictions, they have to find a new place to sell their crops, and that’s not so easily done.”

Each summer, RAP connects top high school students with CAES faculty mentors for an intensive research and campus-life experience. This year, 20 students worked on projects as varied as the micropropagation – or cloning – of certain beneficial plants; the determination of B vitamins in peanuts and peanut flour; and the sensory analysis of healthier chocolate muffins.

Bell was the research apprentice of Osei-Agyeman Yeboah, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Agribusiness, Applied Economics and Agriscience Education. “I’m glad that I had this experience. I learned a lot,” she said. “International trade can be fun if you know the terms and the concepts.”

In addition to conducting research, she was able to experience life on campus, take field trips to local places of interest, and meet other like-minded students from as far away as Iowa and as close as Guilford County. The students’ visit to the International Civil Rights Center and Museum in downtown Greensboro was particularly memorable.

“It was powerful,” she said. “I’m glad we got to come to this program and connect with that history.”

Yeboah said that he would be glad to have Bell, who will be a high school junior this fall, and the other program participants as students in a few years.

“This program shows students that they can do it – they can do research, they can do well in college,” he said. “They can do anything they put their minds to.”Jada Bell, a high school junior from Fargo, N.D., may have spent a month on the campus of N.C. A&T this summer, but her research took her a world away.

As a participant in the Research Apprentice Program in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, she spent four weeks, from mid-June to mid-July, researching the effects of the trade war with China on U.S. commodity crops, including soybeans, beef and pork.

“I found out that tariffs have a big effect on farmers here,” she said. “Because of the government’s tariff restrictions, they have to find a new place to sell their crops, and that’s not so easily done.”

Each summer, RAP connects top high school students with CAES faculty mentors for an intensive research and campus-life experience. This year, 20 students worked on projects as varied as the micropropagation – or cloning – of certain beneficial plants; the determination of B vitamins in peanuts and peanut flour; and the sensory analysis of healthier chocolate muffins.

Bell was the research apprentice of Osei-Agyeman Yeboah, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Agribusiness, Applied Economics and Agriscience Education. “I’m glad that I had this experience. I learned a lot,” she said. “International trade can be fun if you know the terms and the concepts.”

In addition to conducting research, she was able to experience life on campus, take field trips to local places of interest, and meet other like-minded students from as far away as Iowa and as close as Guilford County. The students’ visit to the International Civil Rights Center and Museum in downtown Greensboro was particularly memorable.

“It was powerful,” she said. “I’m glad we got to come to this program and connect with that history.”

Yeboah said that he would be glad to have Bell, who will be a high school junior this fall, and the other program participants as students in a few years.

“This program shows students that they can do it – they can do research, they can do well in college,” he said. “They can do anything they put their minds to.”