I like how you connect the science to what is important to the community. How many students/classes have you impacted during the four years and what is an example of a community issue studied/tackled in one of the courses?

The first year we did not have students/class. Since then we have had as few as 4/year complete, and this year we will have 7 students complete successfully between the two schools; over three years about 15 students. Total enrollment at NICC is about 180 students; LPTC about the same. 

Water is one of my overriding themes in any class I teach. In Chemistry, it is even easier to connect since we talk about molecular structure, polarity, solutions, ions, acids/bases and these all connect to water. 

Water quality and purification labs and soil quality labs enable students to connect to both community and chemistry. Starting with a density lab, we use corn and beans part of the Three Sisters Gardening story, we talk about food, water, and soil quality. 

I have adapted Adopt an Element to Adopt a molecule for students learn more about a chemical in their foods, air, water, environment basically-I do let them choose the molecule. This coming year at NICC, we will focus more on food sovereignty and chemistry connections. Cooking food can be used to show chemical changes as well as generating discussions about calories, quality of food sources, disease, etc. 

Thanks for sharing your project with us! It sounds like a wonderful collaboration. I also like the medicine wheel painting.

I have a couple of questions, and will start with this: How you are reaching out to the community to let them know about this program? Meaning, what formats are you using to reach out, and what expectations are you imparting as to what students will be able to learn and be able to do once they have completed the two semesters? Thanks. 

The Medicine Wheel painting is titled "Sharing Cycle of Science Learning." It is a gouache painting by Laurie Houseman Whitehawk, a well-known painter in northeast Nebraska who has tribal affiliations with the Santee Sioux and Winnebago, two of the tribes that support our tribal colleges. When I commissioned her to make the Medicine Wheel painting, she gave us full right to use the image in any promotional material related to the tribal college science courses. I would also like to note that my wife and I paid for the painting with our personal funds and not grant funds. One interesting feature of the upper left sector is that she represented the Advisory Board as an Indian woman handing a gift to President Obama who is giving her an Erlenmeyer flask. The woman's gift represents the Advisory Board's wisdom and the flask represents the "Framing the Chemistry Curriculum" grant.

We are interested in learning how other Tribal Colleges meet their tribal mission in their science courses. If you are interested in learning more about our method, we would love to visit with you to describe the practicalities of setting up our method at your institution.

Another way that we are planning to reach out to the local communities is to create a Tribal Community Science course that is focused on hands-on measurements of water samples, soil, or plants that the adult students bring to class. We will connect these measurement to the Community Topics, science, and technology through discussions.

I'm wondering, do you consider this project an example of project-based learning, or place-based learning, or how would you best characterize the model? It seems unique in its focus on low-enrollment institutions, but also more.

I think of it as both, place-based, project learning. Prior to my work here, I taught HS mathematics and science in a rural school. Almost all of my earth systems assessments were projects and mostly locally based. I use water through this course as the springboard to connect chemistry and community; different topics though for different places. I used stream and precipitation in the my HS teaching; here I use agricultural water uses, but will be branching out into the aquifer and the MIssouri River for water quality. I hope to work with other colleges along the Missouri who are also sampling the river for water quality. Again, lots of chemistry to weave through the water quality of rivers and aquifers. 

Mark and Beverly - thanks for sharing! I appreciate the visual aspect of the Medicine Wheel painting. I think it was a great idea to bridge the chemistry students with the middle school students for demonstrations - there is a significant amount of teaching and learning that is available for those interactions. Do you have any interactions with local high schools as well? I also appreciate the idea for evening science events to increase community involvement. Great thinking!

Yes, we interacted with the high school students too. I believe the 7 schools serving the two tribal colleges are all K-12. At one school, we first presented to the middle school classes and then separately to the high school juniors and seniors. An unexpected outcome was that 4 of the high school students traveled to Lincoln the following fall to attend Chemistry Day at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

We have visited local high schools as well. At one campus, we went one morning to the science classes and had a group of freshmen through seniors, with the majority of students juniors and seniors. Our college students explained the chemistry behind the demos they did; so our students were interacting with the high school students. 

At another school the chemistry class participated in their local school's science event, a variety of science demonstrations with students able to move through the different presenters. I do not remember if this was all age groups of students or only high school.

One of our TAs has attended a science night in their community that was not limited to middle school students but all students and their families. 

We have taken advantage of different opportunities to reach out to the local schools, mostly middle and high school. 

Part of the challenge is that NICC is located at three different campuses with instructors based at one; LPTC is in a fourth community. We plan to initiate more outreach instead of waiting for the local school's own science events to interact.  Therefore, if we have science family nights for all ages, on a rotating campus/community basis, we can increase our outreach. 

Good idea! If we host a science family night at their school, then certainly they could put photos, etc. on their websites (and social media, if they have them). Will follow up on this suggestions this coming year. Thank you.

I love this video and this project. I love the connection between community, science, and the Tribal Colleges. 

I've been enjoying the conversation! I know one of your goals is to create a sustainable chemistry course that enhances tribal sovereignty by having the students learn how chemistry can help their communities. With your partnerships, community input, and number of cycles you've gone through already, it seems like you've put down broad and deep roots for sustainability. But what do YOU see happening with the 4 cycles after the grant is over? Is there a way you've been measuring your progress toward that success? 

In the proposal, we defined sustainability as having an enrollment of at least 6 students. We reached that goal for three years in a row at Nebraska Indian Community College but not at Little Priest Tribal College. At the most basic level, therefore, we measure our success in terms of course enrollment and we'll continue to do so into the future. Given the low population density in the areas that the colleges serve, it remains an important goal for us to reach out to the middle and high school students and also to the community to get more people taking these courses. Therefore, we embedded the outreach component into the Spring semester chemistry course - each student learns how to do a chemistry demonstration, along with the banter to describe what's going on, and then pay a visit to one of the area's schools. The more people who are aware of our new science lab courses, the more sustainable the courses will become.

Regarding public demonstrations, I would also like to point out that one, two, three, and then four students in the video are doing the Elephant Toothpaste demo, a favorite among chemists, before the first, second, third, and fourth parts of the Sharing Cycle description. Elephant Toothpaste is popular because it is visually interesting to see a small volume become a large volume. On a chemical level, you are transforming a liquid (hydrogen peroxide) into two gases (water vapor and oxygen) that are trapped inside soap bubbles.