NASA grants SKC $1M

PABLO – Salish Kootenai College will receive a grant for about $1 million from NASA designed to help minority students improve science skills.

NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project awarded nearly $3 million in new cooperative agreements to four Tribal Colleges and Universities to enhance learning through the use of the agency’s Earth science resources.

The award is made through the NASA Innovations in Climate Education-Tribal activity.

The awards, which have a three-year period of performance and range in value from $413,000 to $1,009,000, support tribal colleges and their partners as they improve teaching and learning about global climate change on their campuses.

The winning proposals illustrated innovative uses of NASA content to support elementary, secondary and undergraduate teaching and learning.

There is a strong emphasis on engaging students using NASA Earth observation data and Earth system models, as well as providing climate-related research experiences for teachers, undergraduate and graduate students, particularly in the TCU community.

SKC’s grant will be used to improve climate literacy and knowledge about climate change in tribal high schools and colleges and within tribal communities, while emphasizing the changes a warming climate will have on tribes, their cultures, lands, plants and animals.

Specifically, the grant will fund the development of an introductory college-level climate change course with a lab and a remote sensing course, both of which utilize NASA climate data analysis, modeling, and visualization tools to enable students to analyze data and interpret models to see and predict changes in the climate and the likely impacts of those changes on their lands and cultures. It will also fund the creation of a high school Learning Unit on climate change and companion social software tools that will utilize and adapt NASA-developed curriculum, learning tools, and information by placing them within a local geographical context and integrating cultural content and perspectives.

It will use and build on existing networks to distribute the college course and Learning Unit to tribal colleges and high schools across the country.

The grant will also fund the development of innovative, relevant place and culture-based climate science and climate change educational resources and a social network to engage students and inspire them to consider careers in climate science and other STEM disciplines. It will also create mentoring relationships between NASA climate scientists and exceptional tribal students and SKC students and reservation high school students to further encourage careers in climate science.