- Biology
- Class of 2015
- Pottstown, Pa.
Alicia Butko of Pottstown Receives Grant to Attend International Botany Conference
2015 Apr 27
Widener University senior biology major Alicia Butko of Pottstown, Pa., is one of only 12 undergraduates from throughout the U.S. to receive a grant from the PLANTS program (Preparing Leaders and Nurturing Tomorrow's Scientists: Increasing the diversity of plant scientists), which will fund her participation in the BOTANY 2015 meeting July 25 - 29, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
The grant will cover all of Butko's expenses to attend the meeting, and the PLANTS program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and Botanical Society of America, will provide her with a graduate student mentor with whom she can discuss and analyze the content presented throughout the meeting sessions. Butko will also deliver her own talk on the research project she completed over the course of her senior year with Dr. Kate Goodrich, associate professor of biology.
Butko and Goodrich created a natural guide for use by freshmen in Biological Concepts I and II courses to help them identify plants in the Taylor Memorial Arboretum in Chester. "We thought that this guide would be useful to the students in these courses who visit the arboretum," said Butko. "It assists them in analyzing, identifying and understanding what plants they come across. It also helps faculty teaching the course whose expertise is not necessarily botany."
In addition to the natural guide, Butko also created a collection of voucher herbarium specimens, which involved pressing plant samples to see their morphological features. She said that beginning in the fall, Widener students and faculty will have access to both the natural guide and these specimens to assist with botany-related coursework.