U.S. Geological Survey scientists generally carry out their work in laboratories and offices throughout the United States, but for others, like USGS biologist Thomas Byl, their crowning achievements take place in a classroom.

Byl, who teaches college courses like ‘fundamentals of environmental science’ and ‘water science,’ has been faculty at Tennessee State University for almost 30 years through a USGS cooperative agreement program. Several USGS scientists throughout the U.S. are posted in colleges and universities, but not all of them teach. In this unique arrangement, Byl is both a USGS employee and a professor. 

As a professor, Byl has influenced hundreds of future scientists in his classrooms and labs. And each summer through TSU’s College of Agriculture’s Summer Apprenticeship Program, Byl also helps high schoolers visualize a science-focused future. 

TSU’s Summer Apprenticeship Program is a competitive month-long residential program for rising high school juniors, seniors, and high school graduates who are interested in pursuing degrees in the sciences. 

Attendees are paid a stipend by the university to attend, and one goal of the program is to attract applicants to TSU, a historically Black university, although applying to the school is not a requirement to attend. 

“You get paid to have fun—what more could you want?” said Amelia Tappler, a current high school senior from Douglasville, Ga., who attended the program this summer. 

Some of the activities the program’s attendees participated in this summer were exploring wetlands science, a field trip to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, and catching and tagging turtles.

“Environmental science is so unique in that we have so many disciplines that whether you are gravitating towards chemistry or you are gravitating towards ecology, there's a place for you in environmental science,” Byl said. 

Tappler, who has been president of her high school’s STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) club, said her interest in environmental science piqued during COVID-19 lockdowns when she got into gardening. 

“I just really fell in love with growing things and creating life in your own backyard,” said Tappler. 

She learned about TSU’s Summer Apprenticeship Program through her uncle, who saw her knack for the sciences and encouraged her to apply. 

“I really want a job that has me in the field, and not inside too often,” explained Tappler of her career aspirations. 

Tappler said she enjoyed the summer program, where she met Byl, and especially appreciated learning about wetlands. Due to her experience in the program, she is currently considering a career in wetlands biology and planning to apply to TSU. 

Aaliyah Cotton, currently a junior at TSU, who first attended the program the summer after before her freshman year, also found the wetlands portion of the program interesting. 

Cotton enjoyed the Summer Apprenticeship Program so much she returned as a mentor this summer to assist faculty. 

“Having people that are intentional about what they’re teaching you makes all the difference,” Cotton said. 

Cotton, who received a full scholarship to TSU to study agricultural science with a concentration in environmental science, said she was exposed to STEM attending the STEM school of Chattanooga. 

“I absolutely loved making the outdoors my classroom,” said Cotton. “It’s very beautiful to me that I can tie almost everything I do back to the environment I’m in. Agriculture is the roof over your head, the clothes on your back, the food on your plate … and all of that has to do with the environment you live in. And I get to study that.” 

Cotton said she feels grateful not only to have found a calling she feels passionate about, but also that at TSU she feels the faculty encourages her curiosity. 

“Dr. Byl is one of the professors that genuinely cares,” she said, explaining that Byl has helped her prepare and present science, recommend conferences she attend, and pursue internships.

Cotton said one of her favorite parts of being a mentor in the Summer Apprenticeship Program was witnessing young people find a newfound love of nature given that there is a disconnect between minorities and the outdoors. 

Cotton is correct, a study published in 2020 by the Hispanic Access Foundation and the Center for American Progress found that people of color are three times more likely than white people to live in places that have no immediate access to nature. The term given to the lack of diversity and inclusion in outdoor spaces is coined the “nature gap,” which has resulted in part due to racial discrimination in historical zoning laws, and also in part due to  unjust experiences that many people of color have in the outdoors. 

And Byl, at TSU, is playing a part in closing the nature gap with his work. He explained that he considers continued representation in earth sciences vital. 

Findings in a 2021 report from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics showed that although roughly 24% of the U.S. workforce is employed in STEM occupations, the workforce isn’t very diverse. Less than 35% of U.S. adults employed in STEM are from an underrepresented minority demographic, the study found, something that Byl would like to see change. 

“That’s important to me,” Byl said of ensuring diverse voices have a place in science. “I feel very strongly about that. I do want to see a change in the demographics.”

In addition to teaching, Byl writes grants addressing diversity in the geosciences and has advised more than 200 research students in engineering, biology, chemistry and agriculture.

Byl said he always loved doing research, but there is a special appeal to being a professor. 

“I’ve always enjoyed that interaction with a student where you can see the dials slowly switching on where they say, ‘I get this,’” he said, noting that his students motivate him. “I do it because I do want to inspire the students. I do want to make them understand that this is all tied together.” 

Byl said the best part about teaching is the success stories he hears of students who have graduated. 

“He really encourages me to treat the field like an investigation,” Cotton said of Byl. He doesn’t box me in at all. There are no dumb questions. [He’s] an amazing professor to work with.”