News - North America
GLOBE Students at Texas High School Help with Public Health Research
In 2023, GLOBE students at the University Academy at Tyler (Texas, USA) were preparing to collect soil data for their high school research project when they were asked to contribute to research led by Dr. Jennifer Honda. Dr. Honda studies nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler. She did previous research on NTM in the Department of Immunology and Genomic Medicine at National Jewish Health in Denver, Colorado.
NTM are bacteria that cause lung and other infections; people who already have a lung disease or who are immunocompromised are at higher risk. NTM can be found in soil, dust, and water all around the world. In the continental United States, it is prevalent in southern states like Texas. It has been previously studied in places like Colorado and Hawaii by Dr. Honda and other public health researchers.
The group of high school students researched NTM habitat suitability, as different microbes prefer different habitats. To do this, they worked with Dr. Joshua Banta, the Director of the Center for Environment, Biodiversity, and Conservation at the University of Texas at Tyler.
En-Tze Chong, now a high school educator at University Academy in Tyler, first met Dr. Banta as an undergraduate researcher. Mr. Chong helped with research on several projects in Dr. Banta’s lab. They reconnected when Dr. Honda reached out to them both for this NTM research project. Mr. Chong’s students were tasked with collecting soil samples and Dr. Banta was asked to use his expertise in ecological niche modeling to identify potential hotspots of NTM species.
The students in Tyler reached out to two other University Academy campuses (in Palestine and Longview) and asked them to collect soil samples using GLOBE protocols to add to Dr. Honda’s research. Doing so allowed the researchers to look at soils in rural (Palestine), suburban (Longview), and urban (Tyler) locations.
Mr. Chong guided his students in both their soil sample collections and in learning Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with Dr. Banta. The students in Tyler, Palestine, and Longview collected samples from their respective locations to find where NTM occur in the eastern region of Texas and which species may pose a threat in the future as population and environmental conditions change. Mr. Chong said, “All of the students developed skills using GIS and gained valuable experience in professional communication that I hope will serve them well in their future careers.”
Dr. Banta told us his lab is using the information collected by GLOBE students to build maps and models to predict where NTM might show up. “What the students collected has helped us design the new work we are starting in the Edwards Plateau and San Antonio (Texas) areas.”
University Academy students shared their research through the 2024 U.S. GLOBE Southwest Regional Student Research Symposium (SRS) and the 2025 U.S. GLOBE Virtual SRS. Their research began in 2023 with one group of students and was picked up in fall 2024 by a second group. One student, Melissa Hilbig, has even moved into assisting with this project as an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Tyler.
The NTM project continues in Texas and researchers are hoping to expand the work nationally. Dr. Banta said, “Using the existing GLOBE network will let students and teachers collect comparable samples across the country, greatly expanding the scope and impact of the data.”
Learn more about nontuberculous mycobacteria infections from the Cleveland Clinic.
Photo caption: University Academy at Tyler students present their soil research at the 2024 U.S. GLOBE Southwest Regional Student Research Symposium.
News origin: United States of America