We will not be offering a program in Summer 2024.
We have compiled a list of some frequently asked questions that will help prepare you for the UCF REU/RET Site. Please feel free to ask us additional questions at belizereusite@gmail.com. We intend for the summer 2023 program to fully in-person in Orlando and Belize, unless COVID conditions prohibit this from occurring, in which case we would move to a hybrid format. Program dates are June 12 to July 27, 2023.
Watch and share the 1 min, 41 second video to see the amazing fieldwork site for this summer! You could be here with us & our community partners.
What Type of Undergraduate Students and K-12 Teachers Do We Want in Our REU/RET Site?
We want participants with the following traits:
a passion for community-based research and education
a desire to engage in a life-changing international field research and educational experience
a strong and creative work ethic
a willingness to challenge yourself, while having fun, and being committed to collaborative learning
an interest in living in Belize for the majority of the summer
a desire to learn more about all aspects of research
a willingness to step outside of your comfort zone, learn about yourself, and challenge your world views
a desire to work with youth in education and outreach activities
How Much Funding Will Participants Receive? With generous funding support from the National Science Foundation, each U.S. student/teacher selected as an REU/RET international community scholar will receive a competitive funding package for their summer 2023 participation, including: a $4200 stipend for successful participation in the entirety of the REU/RET Site (7 weeks), technology support, all expenses paid for their fieldwork travel, up to $750 for post-REU/RET conference presentations and/or industry visits.
What are the Dates of the REU/RET Site?
Our 2022 NSF REU/RET Site runs from June 12 to July 27, 2023. Participants must be available for all dates within the program. Students and teachers can expect to work an average of 40 hours full time each week during the summer program.
What is the Plan for the REU/RET Site?
REU/RET Part 1 in Orlando: June 12-June 22
REU/RET Part 2: Belize fieldwork: June 22-July 16
Part 3: July 16-July 27 in Orlando at UCF
Throughout the program REU students and RET teachers will:
Learn about literature reviews related to GIS, drones, storytelling, science communication, and citizen science;
Engage in cross-cultural dialogues with University of Belize and U.S. students and community partners in Belize during the summer;
Explore new research methods focused on community engagement, participatory methods, and citizen science;
Develop new GIS and drone skills using ArcGIS Online, Arc Pro, and Drone2Map;
Contribute to meaningful mentoring and networking dialogues with our core leadership team and national leaders in team science;
Create research products and science communication strategies using previous fieldwork data and community input for Hopkins Village, Belize;
Develop K-12 education materials to support classrooms in the U.S. and Belize;
Develop and complete a community-based research strategy and set of methods for fieldwork in Belize.
What is the Application Deadline?
We will not be offering a program in Summer 2024.
The Priority Application Deadline was Friday, February 24, 2023 at 5 PM EST. A complete 2023 application includes: 1) an application form through our Google Form and 2) submission of a personal statement (limited to 2 double-spaced pages).
Where Can I Find the Application Form?
The application link for undergraduates can be found in our Google Form at REU Undergraduate Application Form.
The application link for K-12 in-service teachers can be found in our Google Form at RET K-12 In-Service Teacher Application Form.
What Should Go in My Personal Statement?
For undergraduate students applying to the REU Site, including pre-service students enrolled in an undergraduate program, the 2-page personal statement must include: 1) a description of research interests, including how international work fits into these interests; 2) an explanation of what it means to engage in community research and education in a developing country; and 3) a discussion of post-graduation plans.
For K-12 in-service teachers applying to the RET Site, the 2-page personal statement must include: 1) a description of education interests, including how international work fits into these interests; 2) an explanation of what it means to engage in community research and education in a developing country; and 3) a discussion of how you and your students might benefit from lessons and data created in the program.
Are References Required? At time of application, we only ask you provide the name and contact information for a reference. If you are selected for a video interview, we will ask for the reference to be submitted then. This reference should ideally come from a faculty member, advisor, or mentor who can speak to your course experience, real-world experience, and/or your qualifications for the REU/RET.
Who are the Leaders of the UCF REU/RET Site? The leads are internationally-recognized scholars, are committed to student mentoring, have vast experience in international research and teaching, and have a passion for their work.
Dr. Timothy L. Hawthorne is the Principal Investigator of the NSF REU/RET Site and faculty at University of Central Florida. Tim is a public scholar broadly trained in human geography with expertise in community geography and Geographic Information Systems, social and environmental inequalities, critical GIS, Participatory GIS (PGIS), mixed methods, STEAM education, Belize and citizen science. Tim is a tenured, Associate Professor of Geographic Information Systems in the GIS Cluster Initiative and Department of Sociology at the University of Central Florida. Tim has served as PI of this REU Site since 2016. From 2012-2015, Tim was also PI of the nation’s first REU Site in Community Geography and GIS where he mentored 42 students (NSF Award #1156755). He joined UCF to co-lead a new College of Sciences GIS Cluster Initiative in August 2015. He has received over $4.72 million in funding including seven awards from the U.S. National Science Foundation. He has published over 25 peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals spanning multiple disciplines with numerous student co-authors. He holds two associate editorships in Journal of Geography and International Journal of Applied Geospatial Research. Hawthorne has traveled to Belize over 25 separate research trips and is the Program Director for the Belize GIS research study abroad course and co-founder of the Belize GIS Exchange.
Dr. Lain Graham is the Co-PI of the NSF REU/RET Site (2022-2023). She is a Senior Solution Engineer on the National Government Sciences team at Esri, and a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of Natural History. Lain holds advanced degrees in Sociology, Anthropology, and GIS. Lain is a Registered Professional Archaeologist (RPA) and certified FAA part 107 UAV pilot. In her role as a Senior Solution Engineer at Esri, Dr. Graham assists federal agencies in the adoption and optimization of the ArcGIS system to develop meaningful solutions to address real-world problems. She primarily works with NASA, EPA, NOAA, the U.S. Census Bureau and Federally Recognized Tribes. Lain specializes in environmental protection and cultural resource management, community geography, remote sensing, field operations, and geospatial strategy development. Dr. Graham additionally engages in academic research and public scholarship in her appointed role as an Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of Natural History. In this capacity, she works with other archaeologists and interdisciplinary collaborators to support North American archaeological research projects. Dr. Graham has spent the past six years working in Belize with Citizen Science GIS on the NSF REU as the staff Senior Research Mentor and as a Graduate Research Assistant. Lain is a cofounder of Open Reef and the Maps, Apps and Drones K-12 STEAM program. Dr. Graham conducted her dissertation research in Hopkins Village, Belize studying sense of place and social and environmental landscape change.
Dr. Angela Vergara is an REU/RET Faculty Mentor and Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Central Florida. Dr. Vergara holds advanced degrees in Sociology and Psychology from the University of Central Florida and St. John’s University in New York. Dr. Vergara is an accomplished researcher specializing in qualitative research designs, interviewing analysis, and social network analysis. Dr. Vergara is a multilingual translator and has more than ten years of experience as a multilingual translator in Spanish and English for multiple research projects in interview analysis, survey methods, and qualitative data analysis. As teaching faculty of the Research Methods and Data Analysis capstone courses in Sociology, she has mentored over 30 undergraduate and graduate students on their research projects. These projects resulted in presentations at the Southern Sociological Society Annual Meeting, Southern Demographic Association Annual Meeting, UCF Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence (SURE), American Sociological Association, and the UCF Student Scholar Symposium. Dr. Vergara has taught students from diverse backgrounds, and teaching within these contexts has allowed her to center these teaching skills and apply them to mentoring strategies in research processes. Dr. Vergara conducted her dissertation research on disaster resilience and mental health outcomes in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017. Dr. Vergara’s research is intersectional and involves topics in social inequalities, population health, and disaster resilience.
Dr. Hannah Torres (PhD in Geography and Environmental Science and Policy) was the Co-PI of the NSF REU/RET Site (2020-2021), and is now at University of New Mexico. Dr. Torres has contributed to multiple NSF research grants including work on a project about climate change adaptation and resilience (metropole.marine.usf.edu) as well as her current work on a project about restoration and sense of place in the Indian River Lagoon, Florida (http://sciences.ucf.edu/sociology/cnhcc/). She also created an app to document inland sources of marine litter through a NOAA-funded project to prevent marine debris through outreach and education. Dr. Torres has earned awards for teaching excellence in a STEM field, having taught a variety of undergraduate courses including cultural geography, geography of Latin America, water resources management, and environmental science, which included a field component in the Florida Keys. Dr. Torres’ research is interdisciplinary, and centered around the themes of environmental sustainability, disaster resilience, and human-nature interactions.
Are the Faculty Prepared to Lead Me in Belize? The project team recognizes the challenges of conducting community-based research in an international setting, especially since the PI and Co-PI have already navigated these challenges successfully in the previous years of the REU Site in Belize. Such challenges include: researcher positionality, length of stay in the study site, educational and cultural barriers, local knowledge or lack thereof, insider/outsider perspectives, health/safety concerns, interpersonal conflicts, and ethical treatment of human subjects. Having an existing relationship with UB faculty and students and the Smithsonian, and strong pre-program training can mitigate some of the challenges. The PI and his team expect and understand these challenges, but do not take them lightly. In fact, the PI and his colleagues have published on such obstacles in one of geography’s most prestigious journals, The Annals of the Association of American Geographers, offering the first account of a methodology known as “critical reflection mapping” connecting journaling, critical reflection, and sketch mapping. The methodology provides foreign researchers (including undergraduates from the PI’s previous Belize programs) an opportunity to discuss the challenges/emotions faced as they engage in community geography research abroad. The PI also wrote the first article on the challenges of international community geography with students in The Journal of Geography in Higher Education. Faculty mentors are committed to community-based geospatial research and undergraduate teaching/mentoring across disciplines. The PI and Co-PI have over 13 years of combined experience working in Belize and have developed an extensive network to ensure success and safety for students.
Who are Our International Partners? We will work closely with several communities, community scholars/residents, and research partners in Belize, including the: University of Belize, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystems Program, The Hopkins Village Council, and others.
What is Belize Really Like?
Size: Due to Belize’s small size—roughly comparable to the state of Massachusetts—multiple fieldwork locations are accessible to REU/RET participants. Only 2.5 hours flight time from Orlando, Belize is accessible, relatively inexpensive, and a uniquely different international experience for students. English is freely spoken as the official national language and the American dollar is widely accepted, providing a certain level of comfort to students.
Language: English is the official language of Belize and is freely spoken in all of our study locations. Additional languages including Spanish, Mayan, Creole and other many other local dialects will also be observed in Belize. Many Belizeans will move freely between multiple languages within the same conversation.
Currency: The Belizean dollar has a flat exchange rate of 2 Belizean Dollars to 1 US Dollar. US Dollars are accepted in all locations (and often preferred), though your change will likely be in Belizean dollars.
Food: The food is fresh and delicious! Depending on the locations visited you will likely experience the traditional Belizean meals including rice and beans and stew chicken. There are vegetarian options in most places and tons of fresh seafood. The food is one of the best parts of the Belizean experience from what we have been told by our students. Meals do take more time to prepare than in the US, so expect meal times to last longer than usual.
Weather: Students can expect it to be very hot, humid and sunny with temperatures in the upper 90’s with heavy, short bursts of rain throughout portions of the day.
Living Conditions: All REU/RET housing quarters are safe, modest, and well maintained in locations where the PI and Co-PI have visited with students in the past. Think of the locations as field stations or budget hotels/motels with modest accommodations, including beds, shower/toilet, and possible ceiling fans. The water is treated (or bottled) at all housing locations so it is safe to drink.
Fieldwork Locations: Belize is a beautiful and diverse landscape. Most of the REU/RET Site will include locations along the coast in the village of Hopkins. The Village of Hopkins is on the Caribbean in the Stann Creek District of Belize, which is rich in Garifuna cultural traditions.
Wifi, Phones, and Technology: The wifi situation is very, very different than what you are used to in the U.S. When available, speeds are slow. Video streaming does not work very well most times. Zoom, Skype and Google Chat will work in Belize when Wifi is strong. International calling, texting, etc can be worked out with your individual cell phone provider before you arrive in Belize, or you can purchase a phone plane in Belize from a local carrier during the trip. The REU/RET will provide the team with two shared Belizean cell phones for in-country calls.
Health and Safety: Health concerns are an individual choice, but as a foreign traveler, one should always consider consulting with a healthcare provider at least two months in advance of travel for proper advice and potential immunizations. The CDC offers a guide for foreign travelers to Belize @ http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/none/belize.
Can I Receive Independent Study or Research Credit From My University/College for this REU/RET Site? Possibly, but that decision is entirely up to your chair and dean at your home university/college. We are happy to provide a letter of support for such credit, but it will be at the discretion of your university/college. As a NSF-funded program we do not require or except universities/college to offer credit for this experience, but we will support the wishes of a student's home university/college.
I am a Graduate Student or Graduating Before July 27 2023 Am I Eligible for the REU? NSF requires that a student be enrolled in an undergraduate degree program at time of participation in the REU, so a student that just graduated or is a graduate student would not be eligible. However, if you are a K-12 teacher, you can apply to our RET component.
Do I have to have GIS training/experience to be eligible? No, we welcome students and teachers will all backgrounds. We request that REU/RET applicants have an interest in learning and applying GIS with communities. Previous experience with GIS is not required. We also welcome students and teachers with backgrounds in qualitative methods and mixed methods, since our REU/RET emphasizes mixed methods research.