Teaching STEM by Playing with Primates

Intermediate REACH students at Hilton’s QUEST are coding games for baboons at the Seneca Park Zoo. They recently worked with Dr. Caroline DeLong, professor and undergraduate director of psychology at RIT, who is running the study to increase young students’ interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) by engaging them with something that is interesting and familiar – animals at the zoo. She is working with a team of researchers at both RIT and Carnegie Mellon University.

RIT’s College of Liberal Arts brings the humanities, social sciences, and performing arts into the digital age. Innovate, imagine, and grow in our uniquely human-centered, tech-infused environment, supported by a community of creators who are inspired and equipped to turn “What If?” into “I Will."

From robot waiters to river otters, RIT’s Graduate Showcase will cover a wide variety of topics representing graduate scholarship from the university’s Henrietta and global campuses. The symposium, held April 7, will feature oral presentations in the morning and poster presentations, demonstrations, and visual exhibitions in the afternoon.

Kaitlin Gunther, a fourth-year psychology and computer science double major from Webster, N.Y., is trying to better understand how fish view the world. Gunther will present her research, Visual Discrimination of Rotated 3D Unicolor Objects in Goldfish, at RIT’s virtual Undergraduate Research Symposium.