KNOX, Pa. (EYT) – Five Keystone eighth graders recently presented their research at the annual Clarion University Undergraduate and Graduate Research Conference, and it was a life-changing experience for them.

[Students included (pictured above left to right) Cody Zaeske, Danae Hurrelbrink, Corinne Lloyd, Rori Vickers, and Abbey Henry.]

Keystone eighth grader Rori Vickers told exploreClarion.com, “The undergraduate and graduate conference was a wonderful experience that showed me that I am capable of doing work that college students do. I feel as though this helped me overcome my fears of public speaking, and I learned how to put a research project together. The conference itself was a wonderful environment full of encouraging people.”

Conrad Warner who teachers eighth grade Social Studies and 11^th grade World History at the Keystone Junior-Senior High School said, “We’ve had this thing going on in the school for students to go ‘above and beyond.’”

Warner’s student teacher Jacob Craig (pictured above) helped start the activity as part of his research about getting students more motivated.

“They allowed us to have five spots at Clarion University Undergraduate Research Conference,” said Warner.  “We took five of our eighth graders over there, and they kind of blew it out of the water.  They went ‘above and beyond’ and wrote papers that were on a par with the undergraduate students that were presenting research.  They put it together and presented it at the conference.  It was a pretty cool thing to see.  I imagine there were over 100 Clarion University students in attendance.”

Clarion University professors were also impressed with the Keystone students at the conference.  Dr. Susan Prezzano, Dr. Steve Harris, and Dr. Jesse Haight all worked with the students.

“I was very impressed by them,” said Harris who serves as chairman of the Department of Biology and Geo Sciences.  “They were very confident and personable.  I went up and talked to each one of them and asked them to explain their project and their research, and every one of them was just very good.  They explained what they were doing, and they had no sense of fear at all.  They didn’t seem to be overwhelmed by the situation they were in with a whole bunch of college kids.”

“There was another student there, and she was apparently working on a story.  Both Susan and I talked to her and answered various questions, and toward the end, she said she was an 11th grader at Keystone.  She was very impressive, too.  Here, I thought I was talking to either a college student with the school paper on somebody who had graduated and was now working as a reporter. As a group, they were very, very impressive.”

Warner said it was a first for his class, but the students have been doing a lot of this kind of work during this year, along with the last few years.  Principal Brad Wagner is credited with expanding the program to go above and beyond. Warner also points to the work of Librarian Patrick Bush who has turned the Keystone Library into a center for research and writing. Students get support in making resource choices.

“They described it as being a life-changing kind of thing,” said Warner.  “One said it was an opportunity for growth. All five of them presented to our entire history department at the high school and our superintendent and principal the Monday before the conference.”

“They came back afterwards and thanked Mr. Craig for setting it up and Superintendent Shawn Algoe and Principal Brad Wagner for their support.  One student said it made him feel like a better human being because he knew he was capable of this kind of thought and work.”

“One of the young ladies said when we were eating lunch that if she was asked two months ago if she would every do something like this, she laughed because she barely talks in class, and here she was standing shoulder to shoulder with graduate and undergraduate students presenting research.”

“They also said (that) the Monday at school when they presenting to the history department and the administration was more intimidating. It was much more frightening to do that.”

‘They knew they were going to do this a month and a half before the conference, and the amount of research they put into it and the amount of time they spent studying and talking with each other was amazing – they knew this stuff inside and out.  You could ask them about the references they used.  The articles they used was based on not only peer-reviewed research, but they were legitimate research and college-level research.”