Everything Nac

Wading into Lanana Creek, three Nacogdoches High School seniors enrolled in Stephen F. Austin State University’s STEM Academy collect water samples to test the creek’s water quality. It’s 7:30 a.m., and immediately the students take note of the environment, jotting down the temperature, humidity and pointing out the creek’s shallowness.

After recording their initial observations, Brandon Smith, Marin Beal and Miranda Allbee take the water’s temperature and measure the depth and flow rate at different locations along the creek.

“We are looking at the water quality in the creek both upstream and downstream of the bridge construction to see if it’s affecting the water,” Smith explained.

Since the first week in July, the three students have been collecting samples at Lanana Creek for their research project, which is a requirement of SFA’s STEM Academy for fourth-year students.

Through the STEM Academy, which is part of SFA’s College of Sciences and Mathematics, students from Nacogdoches and Lufkin High Schools are exposed to rigorous science, technology, engineering and mathematics curriculum and investigative laboratory and field experiences.

SFA STEM’s curriculum is delivered at the high school campuses and tailored to match science course curriculum. Students in the STEM Academy also participate in half-day visits to SFA laboratories and field sites every three weeks where they interact with and learn from SFA faculty members.

Dr. Dennis Gravatt, associate professor of biology at SFA, works with many STEM Academy students, including Smith, Beal and Allbee.

“The academy offers students an opportunity to experience science outside of their high school courses,” Gravatt said. “They are exposed to different facets of science that they wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise.”

The academy is organized by class level, and each level has a specific focus area. For example, freshmen are in STEM 1, which is focused on biology; sophomores are in STEM 2, which is centered on chemistry; and juniors are in STEM 3, which is mainly physics. During their fourth year, STEM Academy students engage in experimental design and conduct their own research.

Smith, Beal and Allbee are one of many student groups working on their research for their final year in the academy.

“The STEM Academy is great because you get to do stuff like this,” Beal said, referencing the group’s ability to conduct field research at the creek.

Allbee agrees the academy provides more hands-on experiences, and although the academy is challenging, it is worth it.

“Before Brandon, Marin and Miranda began their project, we had a brainstorming session where we discussed all their options. I acted as a mentor and facilitator to help the students think critically, work through their research questions and instigate thoughts,” Gravatt said. “For the students, this was a great experience as they were able to see what it’s like working with scientists, asking questions and having discussions.”

After fine-tuning the research proposal, the students decided to study how the construction of the bridge on Starr Avenue would impact Lanana Creek’s water quality in regard to biological health. Gravatt explained the students collect samples in deep and shallow areas of the creek because different organisms live in each area, and each depth has different oxygen levels and temperatures.

Overall, the students will collect samples for six weeks, three times a week. They check the pH and oxygen levels, turbidity (how cloudy the water is), conductivity, and water temperature at the surface and bottom of the creek. Additionally, students look for macroinvertebrates, which are small organisms without backbones that are visible without a microscope such as dragonflies and damselflies.

Students will begin to analyze the data and discuss the implications of their findings during the fall. Other STEM Academy students are in various stages of their own research projects.

For several years, Stephen F. Austin State University faculty members in the James I. Perkins College of Education, Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture, and the Rusche College of Business have collaborated with Oglala Lakota College, a tribal college of Pine Ridge Reservation in Kyle, South Dakota, to develop resource interpretation and hospitality and tourism concentrations within the Lakota Studies degree.

The National Parks Service, SFA and OLC worked to create this new curriculum to provide indigenous students with the necessary resources to tell their own stories and market their heritage to park visitors seeking an authentic experience.

Dr. Judy Abbott, dean of SFA’s College of Education, is the principal investigator for the project and is working with SFA’s School of Human Sciences’ Dr. Chay Runnels, associate professor, and Dr. Gina Fe Causin, assistant professor, as well as Dr. Shelby Laird, assistant professor, and Dr. Pat Stephens Williams, associate professor, in SFA’s College of Forestry and Agriculture, and Dr. Carol Wright, assistant professor, in the Rusche College of Business.

“The tribal college system provides opportunities for young tribal members that many would not have otherwise,” Abbott said. “We were honored to partner with OLC and the National Park Service on this project to help expand the curriculum options for OLC students. This project taught us about relevancy, diversity and inclusion in academia.”

Through the curriculum design and development process, SFA faculty members inventoried OLC courses, themes and emphasis areas. They also proposed strategies to strengthen indigenous interpretive curriculum and practice.

Laird has been working on the project since January 2015 and has dealt mainly with the interpretation aspect of the curriculum.

“Interpretation is generally the sharing of and communication about our cultural and natural resources through written and oral communication and multimedia presentations. One way to think about it is educational storytelling,” Laird said. “Every park ranger you’ve met likely does interpretation on a daily basis.”

After review, project stakeholders decided to expand the proposed curriculum to include tourism and hospitality studies. Runnels and Causin were then brought on board to write the tourism job outlook of South Dakota and to develop hospitality and tourism curriculum for OLC that would allow students to work in national parks, museums and hospitality establishments.

“We were trying to provide a way for students to connect to the bigger industry of travel and tourism and interpretation in a way that would help them rise out of their situation,” Runnels said.

In addition to joining the workforce, “OLC students will bring authenticity to the stories and storytelling about the Lakota people’s culture,” Causin said.

SFA faculty members traveled to South Dakota several times during the past few years to work on this project.

“It was personally a rewarding opportunity to be able to visit places like Wounded Knee and hear the indigenous story told there and to go into the Badlands with Lakota storytellers,” Runnels said. “It really shifted my perspective on tourism in that part of the country.”

The project team proposed three new interpretation courses and a new hospitality and tourism course for the degree plan in November 2016. OLC approved the courses in January 2017 for implementation into the fall 2017 semester.

“Our greatest hope is that this degree program will give direction to the Lakota people in telling and interpreting their own stories in the context of the broader world and not letting others be the ones interpreting their sacred traditions,” Laird said.