Grant to boost state’s environmental education
Posted on Jan. 20

A $1.25 million federal grant awarded to the University of Montana could allow students throughout western Montana to receive cutting-edge environmental health science education.

Awarded by the National Institutes of Health, the five-year Science Education Partnership Award is designed to increase public understanding of science and encourage student interest in research careers.

The UM Center for Environmental Health Sciences, which studies human disease and the adverse effects of environmental contaminates, will administer the grant.

“The real vision of this is to get more students interested in science,” CEHS Director Andrij Holian said. “Hopefully they will be inspired to carry that interest on into college and maybe become researchers themselves.”

Holian said the grant will be used for curriculum development for rural students and teachers as well as innovative ways to disseminate the information.

UM is working with Salish Kootenai College to make sure the curriculum is culturally appropriate for American Indian students and broader audiences. Holian said SKC will convert a bus into a mobile science lab that can visit schools in smaller western Montana communities.

Holian said a K-12 coordinator will be hired for the project, and researchers in his center will contribute to curriculum development. Teachers also will be able to use an “air-quality trunk” as a teaching tool.

It’s expected that much of the new curriculum will be hands on or useable outdoors.  The program is expected to expand into water quality issues in the future.

The addition currently being built onto UM’s Skaggs Building, which houses CEHS, will include a science education center for students, making it possible for student science activities to take place there as well. The center also will have rotating displays of educational materials.

Science teachers and community-based education groups already are being recruited to help with the rural education effort.  Holian hopes one offshoot will be a strengthening of ties among UM, SKC and outlying western Montana schools.

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