Undergraduate Internship Program Projects

Cultivating Stewardship: Sustainable Land and Resource Management for Franklinton Farms
PI: Michelle Kaiser (OSU College of Social Work)

Founded in 2007, Franklinton Farms is a community-driven nonprofit urban farm dedicated to growing food, creating beauty, and building community in Franklinton, an historically underserved neighborhood facing high poverty and food insecurity. The farm supplies fresh produce through a Community Supported Agriculture program (CSA), farmers’ markets, and local partnerships, while also hosting educational programs, community events, and therapeutic gardening initiatives. It has become a key hub for interdisciplinary collaboration with Ohio State University, supporting research, teaching, and service-learning projects. Franklinton Farms is working to improve operational efficiency across its 12 gardens to help address funding challenges. This internship will support those efforts by developing land and equipment management plans, assessing sustainability practices such as plastic use, improving site organization, and helping the farm work toward Good Agricultural and Handling Practices certification, ultimately strengthening its social and ecological impact in a highly visible urban setting.

Cultivating Stewardship: Sustainable Land and Resource Management for Franklinton Farms
PI: Jo Peacock  (OSU CFAES School of Environment and Natural Resources)

Forested lands are a vital yet often overlooked component of agricultural landscapes in the eastern United States, providing essential ecosystem services such as water regulation, soil stabilization, nutrient filtration, carbon storage, and habitat for wildlife, including pollinators and beneficial insects. These on-farm woodlands also support recreation and economic opportunities through timber, game, and specialty crops like pawpaw and ginseng. However, centuries of land-use change, including agricultural expansion, unsustainable logging, urbanization, invasive species, and climate variability, have fragmented these forests, reducing their resilience and ecological function. Understanding and measuring forest resilience--the ability to withstand disturbance and maintain function--is critical for identifying early warning signs of ecosystem decline and guiding effective restoration. This project integrates plant and bird data across Ohio State’s research forests to assess how environmental conditions and human impacts shape woodland resilience and recovery. By applying standardized methods, the study aims to inform scalable, evidence-based management strategies that enhance forest health, biodiversity, and long-term sustainability across working landscapes.

Enhancing Soil Health and Crop Resilience through Climate-Smart Organic Fertilization

Student: Shawn Bryant Saturday, Jr. 

PI: Fernanda Krupek (OSU CFAES Horticulture and Crop Science)

This project focuses on black soldier fly frass fertilizer (BSFFF), an organic, insect-derived amendment rich in nitrogen, chitin, and beneficial compounds that enhance soil structure, boost microbial activity, and increase nutrient availability. Supported by a competitive USDA-SARE grant in partnership with Purdue University, the research works with local farmers to address key knowledge gaps around the effectiveness, production, and safety of insect-based composting systems, particularly in regions with abundant organic waste. Through field and laboratory work, including soil sampling, plant growth monitoring, and nutrient analysis, the internship will assess BSFFF’s role in soil regeneration and climate-resilient agriculture. Findings will contribute to practical, science-based recommendations and extension materials that promote adoption of sustainable farming practices while providing hands-on research training and collaboration with farmers and scientists.

Creation of an Embedded Ethics Curricula in Nutrition

Student: Mateo Baumann

PI: Brandy Phipps, Central State University Department of Agricultural and Life Sciences; and Patrick Anderson, CSU College of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences, and Education

As nutrition and food systems are inherently transdisciplinary, students must understand and apply ethical considerations across diverse fields such as culture, agriculture, economics, and health. Traditionally taught through standalone courses like food ethics or professional issues in dietetics, ethics education is increasingly shifting toward an “embedded ethics” approach, where ethical concepts are integrated throughout multiple courses to provide continuous, context-specific learning. This project aims to implement such a curriculum within Central State University’s nutrition minor, the department’s most popular program, drawing students from a wide range of disciplines. By embedding ethics across coursework, the initiative will offer a more cohesive and practical framework for understanding food systems and their impacts on health and society. This innovation will enhance student learning through repeated exposure to ethical concepts and will be shared broadly through academic and professional conferences to extend its impact.

Assessing Plant Biodiversity at the Grace L. Drake Agricultural Laboratory
PI: Eugene Law (OSU CFAES Horticulture and Crop Science)

This project continues the process of documenting baseline plant biodiversity at OSU Wooster’s Grace Drake Agricultural Laboratory. Establishing a baseline will provide a key data point to determine how plant biodiversity has evolved using varying agricultural systems management plans (ecological or standard approach). This student will use the Grace Drake GIS Data Hub to plan and carry out data collection sampling strategies for the various cropland, pasture, and wooded or woodland-adjacent areas throughout the farm. Data on the species and the methodology will be important key outcomes for further agroecology research at Ohio State’s Grace Drake farm. We will incorporate a variety of methods taking advantage of image data and new technology.

Does Cross-Habitat Spillover Support Landscape Scale Insect Diversity and Services? 
PI: Kayla Perry (OSU Entomology)

As we continue to lose land due to human impact, evidence supports that insect populations are decreasing. Insect populations are an essential part of the ecosystem. In this study we will look at different land uses surrounding agricultural fields and examine the effect they have on insect habitats and populations.  This work will take place at the OSU Wooster Grace Drake Agricultural Land Laboratory. 

Assessing Plant Biodiversity at Grace Drake Agricultural Laboratory
PI: Eugene Law (OSU Horticultural and Crop Science)

This study will document the plant biodiversity at OSU Wooster’s Grace Drake Agricultural Laboratory, providing future studies with a reliable baseline to measure how plant biodiversity has evolved through the agricultural systems management plan.

Synergizing Grower Surveys and Molecular Tools to Understand Spotted Lanternfly Spread to Ohio Specialty Crops.
PI: Ashley Leach and Natalie Constancio (OSU Entomology)

Ohio’s wine industry is valued at approximately $6.6 billion, however the Spotted Lanternfly (SLF) poses significant risks. This study will utilize pre-collected environmental DNA samples and grower surveys to assess the relationship of SLF establishment to vineyard management practices and grower perspectives.