The goals of this proposal are to (1) incorporate remote sensing tools, such as GIS training, into an interdisciplinary program to increase students' understanding and awareness of climate resiliency,…

This is a $844,357.00 cooperative agreement awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Shared Services Center to the Northwest Indian College Foundation, a nonprofit organization that serves as the fundraising arm for Northwest Indian College, the only accredited tribal college in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

The goal of this agreement is to incorporate remote sensing tools, such as GIS training, into the college's interdisciplinary Native Environmental Science program to increase students' understanding and awareness of climate resiliency. It will insert remote sensing applications into the curriculum to address culturally relevant topics related to climate resiliency, and advance opportunities for students to enter the workforce with remote sensing skills or pursue STEM graduate programs. The agreement does not utilize any set-asides and has an August 2022 completion date.

The goals of this proposal are to (1) incorporate remote sensing tools, such as GIS training, into an interdisciplinary program to increase students' understanding and awareness of climate resiliency, while (2) inserting remote sensing applications into course curricula to facilitate addressing culturally relevant topics related to climate resiliency, and (3) to advance the opportunities of students to enter the job force with remote sensing skills, or to facilitate their entrance into a stem graduate program in a culturally relevant manner, focused on community goals and needs. Northwest indian college is focused on incorporating traditional ecological knowledge and place-based education into their geoscience curricula. The native environmental science (NES) program, which offers a BS degree to undergraduates, focuses on project-based courses and opportunities for independent research, making IT a requirement of the program. As such, the program is highly interdisciplinary and offers a variety of applications in new and developing areas of study. Including remote sensing instruction in courses draws on processing tools, web-based data, and can fulfill the community need of producing back- and forecasting models for pertinent topics. In accordance with the mission of the college, we would incorporate land/sea and ocean remote sensing into our program as water, both fresh and marine, are a central unifier to the coast salish peoples that the college serves. Literature on incorporating remote sensing into curricula suggests a component on actual usage of remote sensing products, rather than just educational classroom knowledge. As such, we would include both classroom training using NASA s ESS and climate resiliency educational tools, internship opportunities with NASA, and practical research opportunities based on community and individual needs for our students. The incorporation of a remote sensing component to the stem curricula provides crucial opportunities for underrepresented students to learn demanding job skills in the remote sensing fields, as well as prepare undergraduates for continuation to a graduate degree in the stem sciences that are relevant to the ESS and climate resiliency missions. By focusing on the land/sea interface, and specifically the quality of the freshwater systems entering the salish sea, washington, we would incorporate culturally important topics into the classroom curricula.