In 1998, a conversation between Dr. Carol Davis of Turtle Mountain Community College (TMCC) and Dr. G. Padmanabhan of North Dakota State University (NDSU) led to a program involving all five tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) in North Dakota as well as NDSU and the University of North Dakota (UND). The goal was to spark interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) among Native youth. The program, later named Nurturing American Tribal Undergraduate Research and Education (NA- TURE), recently turned 20 years old.
Administered and funded since 2006 by the NSF and the North Dakota Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (ND EPSCoR), NATURE has four progressive components active at all five TCUs: three components familiarize students with their closest TCU, and the fourth exposes TCU students to NDSU/UND.
TCU Summer Camp — a two-week STEM camp hosted by TCU faculty for pre-college students
Sunday Academy — seven monthly STEM modules provided to pre-college students throughout the academic year
Bridge Camp — a six-week summer camp developed by ND EPSCoR for incoming TCU students to provide college success skills
University Summer Camp — a two-week camp to introduce TCU students to four-year and graduate STEM degree programs
NATURE coordinators are Chris Dahlen, Cankdeska Cikana Community College; Kerry Hartman, Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College; Mafany Ndiva Mongoh, Sitting Bull College; Dr. Austin Allard, TMCC; and Mandy Guinn, United Tribes Technical College.
The pedagogical key to the program’s success is cultural collaboration. Cultural experts work with K–12 teachers, TCU faculty, and research university faculty to design NATURE activities. A cultural expert begins each activity and presents the day’s STEM topic from an Indigenous perspective. Making connections between Indigenous and Western science and knowledge helps Native students navigate the two views of the natural world.
More than 20 NATURE participants have earned bachelor’s degrees in STEM, and some have continued for graduate degrees in STEM. While most have obtained their degrees in North Dakota, a few have gone to Kansas State University, Caltech, Dartmouth, MIT, and Harvard. Besides engineering, NATURE participants have earned degrees in biology, chemistry, environmental science, medical lab technology, medicine, pharmacy, public health, science education, and zoology.
Many former NATURE participants are now succeeding in the STEM workforce. A few recent participants making a tremendous impact within their communities are Dr. Austin Allard, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa (PhD, civil engineering, Texas A&M, 2017), now faculty at TMCC; Saul Bobtail Bear, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (BS, environmental science, Sitting Bull College, 2018), currently managing the Sitting Bull College water quality lab and soon to pursue a PhD in land resources and environmental science at Montana State University; Ryan Brown, Spirit Lake Tribe (BS, civil engineering, NDSU, 2018), an economic development planner for the Spirit Lake Tribe in North Dakota; Lukas Hartman, Hidatsa (BS, civil engineering, NDSU, 2018), a design engineer on high-voltage transmission lines for Electrical Consulting in Phoenix.; and Jeremy McLeod, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa (BS, civil engineering, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, 2016), a civil engineer and program manager for the Federal Aviation Administration.
▸ Dr. Scott Hanson is the tribal colleges/universities liaison manager for the North Dakota Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (ND EPSCoR) and a former science instructor at Turtle Mountain Community College.
▸ Dr. Jean Ostrom-Blonigen is the project administrator for ND EPSCoR.
▸ Dr. Kelly Rusch is the executive director for ND EPSCoR and a professor of civil and environmental engineering at North Dakota State University.
LEARN MORE
Read more about the NATURE program online at ndepscor.ndus.edu/nd-epscor-programs/nature.