The NATURE (Nurturing American Tribal Undergraduate Research and Education) program is planning its 2010-11 year activities. The program organizers are seeking participation from NDSU faculty.
NATURE is an educational outreach program designed to attract and retain North Dakota American Indian college and high school students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) degree programs. The activities focus on environment, energy and emerging technologies relevant to reservations.
Program activities include a summer camp at NDSU for tribal college students and faculty, summer camps at the tribal colleges for high school students, academic-year Sunday academies at the tribal colleges for high school students, and a collaborative research co-mentoring program for tribal college students. The tribal college and university faculty and reservation high school teachers collaboratively develop all activities of summer camps and Sunday Academy. In the research co-mentoring program, tribal college students work on semester or year-long research projects at their campuses with guidance of tribal college and university co-mentors. Rather than discovery, imparting research skills is the focus.
Other than monetary compensation, NATURE provides excellent opportunities for participating faculty to gain an understanding of cultural sensitivity, particularly in relation to the American Indian culture and learning styles of American Indian students.
NATURE is funded by the North Dakota Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (ND EPSCoR). For more information, go to www.ndsu.edu/epscor/NATURE/index.html. To volunteer, contact G. Padmanabhan at g.padmanabhan@ndsu.edu or 1-7043 or David Givers at david.givers@ndsu.edu or 1-7516.