Salish Kootenai College gets $1 million grant from NASA
Salish Kootenai College in Pablo has received a $1 million grant from NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project.
The award is part of $3 million for four tribal colleges and universities to enhance learning through the use of the agency’s Earth science resources.
The awards support tribal colleges and their partners as they improve teaching and learning about global climate change on their campuses. There is a strong emphasis on engaging students to use NASA Earth observation data and Earth system models as well as providing climate-related research experiences for teachers, undergraduate and graduate students.
Salish Kootenai College will use the money 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, and the plants and animals.
Specifically, the grant will fund an introductory college-level climate change course with a lab and a remote sensing course, both using 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.
The college course and learning unit will be distributed to tribal colleges and high schools across the country.
The program also will create mentoring relationships between NASA climate scientists and exceptional Salish Kootenai College students and reservation high school students to encourage careers in climate science.
Other colleges receiving NASA awards, which range from $413,000 to $1,009,000, are College of Menominee Nations, Keshena, Wisconsin; Turtle Mountain Community College, Belcourt, N.D.; and Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, Cloquet, Minn.