Reach for the Sky: Integrating technology into STEM outcomes for American Indian Youth

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This proposal addresses the need to make science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, and information technology (IT) more culturally relevant for Anishinabe youths on the White Earth Reservation (WER). The objectives of the project are to improve youths? skills, knowledge, and interests in STEM and IT fields. Teachers and staffs from targeted schools, professors from tribal colleges and local universities, community elders, and out-of-school staffs will participate in the project?s activities. The project will engage 60 middle, high, and out-of-school youths, nine teachers, and six other staff persons in 140 contact hours of summer and academic year activities through the Reach for the Sky (RFTS) project.Intellectual merit. The PI has prior experience working with STEM and IT at the K-12 level. The project uses cultural relevant activities and games as the foundation for the proposed workplan. The workplan builds on a nine-year mathematics and science effort on the WER. The STEM content focuses on mechanical and electrical energy, weather and energy, and bio-energy. The STEM content focus is directly linked to a major need for alternative energy on the reservation and allows youths to help find solutions to the increasing demand for energy. Youths will work with the 21st Century Grant and the Land Recovery Project at WER to engage in STEM-related activities and explore alternative ways to produce energy through three energy-related initiatives: harnessing wind energy, collecting solar energy, and using bio-fuels. The IT component allows youths to use multimedia, web-based formats, and perform computer graphics to complete projects. Youths will create video and other multimedia presentations, participate in video streaming, share products and experimental data, develop interactive WIKI projects, and learn about web designing. They will also use webcasts and podcasts to communicate with their peers and other project participants. For example, VideoPoint Capture technology is a format that will allow youths to collect and analyze data and develop skills in multimedia through the transfer of video onto web-based environments, simple video editing, and computational graphical analysis. During the academic year, college and university professors, elders, and members from the advisory board will visit schools to follow-up on summer projects in real class settings and after school activities to help ensure a seamless school, after school, and summer school learning continuum. Broader impacts. The search for alternative sources of energy could significantly advance knowledge in this area for the targeted community, other reservations, and the nation. Key partners include WER, White Earth Tribal College, WER Tribal Elders, 21st Century Grant project staff, and three colleges from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (College of Education and Human Development, College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resources, and the Institute of Technology). Business partners (e.g. the Land Recovery Project at White Earth and Industrial Art and Design in Minneapolis) will also support RFTS activities. These partners will participate in most of the project?s activities including festivals, games, and annual powwows. Evaluation is based on a mixed-method design to allow for the collection of both quantitative and qualitative data about the impacts of using a community-based approach to solving energy-related problems on the WER. Results and findings from formative and summative data will be shared at various meetings and conferences, through online outlets, and peer-reviewed journals. An advisory board will help with project implementation and dissemination. Parents will participate through festivals, games, completion of project activities, and in other project-related activities endorsed by the elders. RFTS lends itself to high probability of sustainability based on the intent to immerse youths in discovery-oriented, research-based activities that are relevant to their lives.