MISSOULA — College classes may be out for the semester but inside the buildings at the University of Montana, Indigenous high school and middle school students are getting a unique STEM education.
Professor Aaron Thomas, Director of MT AIMS, gave MTN News an in-depth tour of the programming by showing various classrooms where lessons were taking place.
“We’re trying to create opportunities for our Native students especially those here in Montana," Thomas explained. "They may not get the same opportunities as other students might get especially in larger, more urban communities.”
Being on the University of Montana campus, Indigenous students get an insight into college life by staying in the dorms, eating at the dining hall, going to fun evening programs, and doing hands-on studies.
“We’re trying to provide them with different ways of looking at STEM, maybe unique ways that they haven’t seen before," Thomas stated.
The summer program dives deep into the various topics in science, technology, engineering, and math while also connecting back to traditional Indigenous practices.
“Especially within Indigenous communities, you know, song, story, language, ceremony, that all plays a role in science and in math and [we are] demonstrating that those are valid ways of knowing the world around you," Thomas said.
The interconnectedness of STEM and tribal practices has been bringing the students back year after year with most returning for their fourth summer.
Seeing students happily return is what inspires Thomas who says he's looking forward to the students' futures affecting change in the coming years after attending the summer camp.
"Hopefully the future is [that] they step on this campus here before too long and they go into some of these fields; they go into something like chemistry, physics, or into a medical field, whatever that may be," Thomas told MTN News.
"But the real hope is that they take that information back into their community and work within their own people. And then, another idea we’re trying to have is how can the university also change its ways in presenting this information and knowledge to our Native students," Thomas concluded.
Visit https://www.umt.edu/grad/irse/american-indians-in-math-and-science/default.php to learn more about the program.
