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The Nurturing American Tribal Undergraduate Research and Education (NATURE) program is an education outreach project. NATURE aims to improve science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education among middle school, high school, and tribal college students, and to build a pathway for American Indians living in North Dakota who are interested in pursuing careers in STEM disciplines.
NATURE programming includes the Tribal College Summer Camps, Sunday Academy, and University Summer Camps. Thousands of Indigenous North Dakotans have participated in NATURE programs over the past 25 years. Between 2020 and 2024 alone, 489 K-12 students attended summer camps and Sunday Academy events.
NATURE programs are currently funded by the State of North Dakota and the National Science Foundation EPSCoR Track-1 Cooperative Agreement OIA #1946202.
NATURE program contacts
Hallie Chelmo
Associate Coordinator of NATURE University Summer Camp at UND
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of North Dakota
Upson Hall II Room 266
Grand Forks, ND 58202
(701) 777-6515
Kerry Hartman
Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College (NHSC) Site Coordinator
Geographic area: MHA Nation
Academic Dean and Chair, Sciences
Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College
220 8th Ave. N.
New Town, ND 58763
(701) 627-4738, Ext. 8053
Britt Heidinger
Coordinator of NATURE Sunday Academy
Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences
North Dakota State University
Stevens 225
Fargo, ND 58105
(701) 231-5377
Giancarlo López-Martínez
Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
North Dakota State University
Mafany Ndiva Mongoh
Sitting Bull College (SBC) Site Coordinator
Geographic area: Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
Professor, Ag & Science
Sitting Bull College
9299 Hwy 24
Fort Yates, ND 58538
(701) 854-8051
Brent Voels
Cankdeska Cikana Community College (CCCC) Site Coordinator
Professor
Turtle Mountain College
history of nature
The origin of the program Nurturing American Tribal Undergraduate Research and Education (NATURE) can be traced to an informal collaboration between the North Dakota State University Colleges of Engineering and Architecture and Turtle Mountain College, Belcourt, North Dakota in 1998.
A team of North Dakota State University (NDSU) science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) faculty worked with the five ND tribal colleges to develop a proposal to increase STEM educational opportunities for American Indian students. The effort paid off when Turtle Mountain College (TMC), in partnership with NDSU, was awarded a five year grant from the Office of Naval Research (An Adaptive Systemic Initiative of Tribal Collaboration for Increasing Native American Participation in Mathematics, Science and Engineering, 1999-2004), to support activities designed to stimulate the interest of Indian youth from North Dakota reservations in careers such as engineering and those involving higher level mathematics, science and technology skills. This project allowed the team to develop and implement activities such as summer camps, Sunday Academy, workshop for tribal college faculty, and a scholarship program to create new, and strengthen existing, pathways for American Indian students to pursue STEM education successfully and to seek careers in those fields.
After the Office of Naval Research grant ended in 2004, the activities were funded piecemeal by NSF TCUP (Tribal Colleges and Universities Program) grants written by TCUs as well as Dr. G. Padmanabhan (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at NDSU) and individual NDSU faculty. This project also received support from NASA PACE program (TMC), 2002-2005, ND EPSCoR FLITE equipment funding, 2001-2004, and NSF BRIDGES program planning grant, 2004.
Though it had provided partial support initially, ND EPSCoR took the program completely under its wing in 2006 after the funding from ONR had ended. At that time, the program assumed the new title NATURE. Since then,
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ND EPSCoR has a Director of Tribal Partnerships who works to improve the effectiveness of the university-tribal college communication and collaboration,
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the University of North Dakota joined the collaboration, and
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the quality of activities previously developed has improved and participants numbers have increased.
