On June 5, 11 high school seniors from various area school districts were under the gun in Guterman Laboratory. As part of the New Visions Agricultural and Environmental Science Program at Cornell for high school seniors, they had designed, performed and charted the data from a semester-long research study at Cornell. They all had their posters and PowerPoints ready for that excruciating rite of passage for the budding scientist: the research symposium.

For want of time or sufficient sample size, many of their research results were inconclusive. Fortunately, though, the audience packing the small conference room was friendly, made up of proud parents, their teacher, Michele Sutton, and some of the Cornell faculty and staff members who had guided the students through their semester at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) at Cornell working with the scientific method.

New Visions, a Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) program, gives selected area high school students a senior-year option for earning credits toward their high school diplomas while spending the semester either at Cornell or in a sister program in health sciences at Cayuga Medical Center of Ithaca. The program at Cornell gives students access to the university's facilities to earn their credits.

Sutton, a BOCES instructor who earned a master's degree in teaching from Cornell in 2002, has been honored with teaching awards every year since 2001, including last year's New York State Agriculture in the Classroom Teacher of the Year Award. She has spent four hours each school-day morning with these students on campus, teaching them college-level English, government, economics and environmental science; beating the bushes for Cornell research mentors, internship opportunities and college scholarships; and offering liberal doses of friendship and encouragement.

"This has probably been my favorite year in school ever," said Ithaca High School student Jenny Fitzgerald, who has been awarded a full scholarship to major in animal science at Cornell on her way to becoming a veterinarian. "I've really enjoyed being at Cornell, working with the professionals and alongside students and experiencing what it's like. It's been so amazing. And the different leadership skills and public speaking that Ms. Sutton focused on have helped all of us be more confident and proud of our work."

"We did a ton of hands-on stuff," said Newfield High School student Amara Steinkraus, who will enter Cornell this fall to study international agriculture and rural development. She got to collaborate with her grandfather, professor emeritus of food science and technology Keith Steinkraus, in a study to determine the effects of sugar and yeast on apple wine.

"It was college-level work, but Ms. Sutton made the information accessible enough that anyone could learn it," said Amara Steinkraus. "It was really nice to work on projects and subjects that were of more interest to me than they would have been in high school."

"To me," said Sutton, "the most important part of the program is the collaboration or partnership that the students have with a faculty member -- to actually be able to work on a research project, whether it's a research question that the student comes up with or a project that the researcher is already working on."

The CALS faculty sponsor for the program is William Camp, professor of education.