Each year in the past seven years, a summer camp at North Dakota State University has attracted tribal college students and tribal high school graduates from the Indian Reservations in North Dakota to learn science, technology, and engineering. One of the activities of the camp is to engage the participants in exploring specific science/engineering subjects through hands-on activities. Students are provided with opportunities to select topics they are interested in. They are divided into small groups, usually 2 to 3 students in a group, and spend one week with university professors working on different projects. Professors from 5 engineering departments and 2 science departments have participated in this activity. Through the years, various topics have been selected to connect students to key subjects of different disciplines, to expose them to contemporary engineering issues and challenges, and to attract them to engineering programs. Professors are encouraged to develop project activities that cover fundamental science/engineering concepts, stimulate critical thinking of the students, and introduce students to procedures of scientific thinking and research. Based on experiences and lessons learned from working with Native American students, professors have been constantly looking for methods to connect with these students by improving hands-on activities to engage them in exploratory learning. In this paper, a set of instructional projects are used as examples to illustrate different approaches and activities that have been used to involve students in active learning through experimental studies. Methods and materials developed in this program have received positive responses from participating students and professors and are applicable to other student groups who are interested in learning science and engineering. Introduction Finding ways to increase enrollment and graduation rate of Native American students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines is a challenge to Native American and other educators. A nationwide increase of enrollment of Native Americans in college program has been observed in recent years due to improved high school completion rate (Bacbo, 2005). However, Native Americans and other underrepresented minorities (blacks, Hispanics) still do not enroll in or complete post-secondary education at comparable rates as whites (National Science Board, 2006). Native American community is the largest minority in North Dakota. Native American population is approximately 5.2% of the total North Dakota population as compared to a national average of 1.0% (U.S. Census Bureau). Most of the 35,000 North Dakota Native Americans reside on five Indian Reservations in remote rural areas, where unemployment rate is usually higher than 50% (Lam, 1997). Forty three percent of this population is under the age of 20 years. Improving education, especially STEM education, on reservations has been a priority of both tribal government and the state. Education of this young population will play an important role in improving economic conditions on reservations. Each of the Indian reservations in North Dakota is served by a tribal college. Great efforts have been made by these tribal colleges in developing and sustaining various 2-year STEM and vocational programs. These colleges are vital links for higher education on reservations. A collaboration between North Dakota State University (NDSU) and 5 North Dakota tribal colleges has continued for 8 years to strengthen tribal college STEM programs, and to attract tribal college students to four year university by building a pathway for Native American students entering STEM careers (Padmanabhan et al., 2004). The major components of this program include: summer camps for tribal college students, tribal college instructors and high school teachers held at the university, summer camps for middle and high school students held at the tribal colleges, a weekend academy for tribal high school students during the academic year (Lin et al., 2006), and research collaboration between the university and tribal colleges. The first two authors have been involved in this program since its inception. A group of engineering faculty has been working with tribal high school teachers and tribal college instructors on this program and has been teaching Native American high school and tribal college students various topics on mathematics, science and engineering during summer camps and weekend academies. This paper focuses on one of the activities of the program, summer camp for the tribal college students. Through the years, efforts have been made to gain better understanding of special needs of and difficulties faced by these students, and to develop lesson materials and hands-on activities to suite their learning style and interest. Through this experience, the faculty determined the use of hands-on exploratory projects an effective way to make camp instruction interesting to the students, to teach them scientific methods, and to stimulate their critical thinking. Also these projects serve the purpose of introducing the tribal college students to engineering. Summer Camp The two-week summer camp is organized at the North Dakota State University for tribal college students. Students coming to the camp include first year and second year tribal college students, and high school students who have been accepted into the tribal colleges. Number of students attending the camp is limited by the budget. Number of participating students has varied from 12 to 17 (Lin et al., 2007). Tribal college program coordinators recruit students. The objectives of the camp include introducing the students to different science and engineering disciplines and exposing the students to ongoing research activities and career opportunities. The activities of week 1 include visits to science and engineering departments, research centers, and laboratories, tours of industrial and municipal facilities, and presentations by Native American engineers and professionals. In the second week, students work in small groups with professors on specific projects involving hands-on exploratory activities. Details of the camp can be found in another companion paper presented in this conference (Lin et al., 2007). Topic Selection North Dakota is a sparsely populated state with well developed agricultural and rich energy resources, such as oil, lignite coal, wind and biomass. North Dakota ranks number one in wind energy and is among the tops states for biomass energy production potentials. Corn, soy beans, canola oil produced in North Dakota plus its vast grasslands provide the basis for future ethanol and biodiesel productions. North Dakota tribes recognize that development of renewable energy is a key step toward protection of the environment and offers potential for a new industry on reservations. Both Turtle Mountain and Spirit Lake Reservations have built a windmill on their land. The tribal council of the Three Affiliated Tribes gave the tribal college, Ft. Berthold Community College (FBCC), a mandate to develop a renewable energy program. Turtle Mountain Community College (TMCC) built its new campus using geothermal heating and cooling. TMCC also installed solar panels on a laboratory building, which is constructed using straw bails as building blocks. TMCC is currently building a windmill on its campus. All these activities reflect the current enthusiasm of the Native American community in developing renewable energy, sustaining a healthy environment, and developing cutting edge industries in their land. The Native American youth are becoming increasingly aware of and interested in these topical areas. Therefore, it was decided to offer project topics in these areas with the hope that the students will see the relevance of the topics to their land and social conditions. For instance, environment, renewable energy, and nanotechnology were selected as the focus areas for the summer camp of 2006. Each year, 2 months before the summer camp, projects were solicited through the university’s biweekly newsletter. Many different engineering and science faculty have proposed research projects for the students. Table 1 shows the summer camp topics that were selected for the past three years and their sponsors. Activity Design The projects were carefully developed so that the students will have the opportunity to go through discovery learning, critical thinking, and engineering skills. In fact we provided the students opportunities to explore using scientific and methodical ways. We deliberately tried to include all elements required of a scientific inquiry or research. There are many existing lesson materials available for teaching the concepts and conducting experiments. Instead of using offthe-shelf materials, we decided to introduce students to commonly followed steps in science and engineering research (Kumar, 2005) and engage them in exploratory project activities.
