Seafha is a Yurok tribal member and a PhD student in Natural Resources Studies with a minor in American Indian Studies. She has worked as a Learning Center Instructor at Ha:san Preparatory and Leadership School (“Ha:san”), a Native American charter school in Tucson, for three years. Her outreach project involves both Ha:san and Klamath River Early College (KRECR), a charter school on the Yurok reservation.  Through her experiences at Ha:san and by living on the Yurok reservation, she has gained insight into teaching Native American students in a culturally relevant atmosphere and is familiar with the extremely adverse circumstances many Native American students face.

One significant limiting factor in preparing high school students for college programs and careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields is the difficulty for teachers to incorporate innovative technology in their curricula. Beyond challenges to widespread incorporation of innovative technology in high schools, charter schools that serve a majority of Native Americans are at an extreme disadvantage in accessing those technologies.  Native Americans are severely underrepresented in college enrollment, especially in STEM fields. In addition, while there is a very large volume of literature about the potential success of teaching science with respect to Native American culture, little of it is based in schools and other contexts that focus on Indigenous learners and their communities.

Seafha is working with students at KRECR and Ha:san to teach them about spatial technologies used in natural resources management, such as air quality, water quality, wildlife and fisheries monitoring. There is a strong focus on the link between culture, place, natural resources, and community health. During the summer of 2011, Seafha coordinated a workshop with various activities, including Geographic Information Systems (GIS), compass and map navigation, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and telemetry. In hands-on exercises, the students were able to demonstrate that they had learned how to use these technologies.  Partners included the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Yurok Tribe Environmental Program, and Yurok Tribe Education Department. She will introduce similar activities to the Ha:san students in Phase 1 of her outreach project.  In Phase 2, she will work with each school’s science teacher to modify the activities such that they can be incorporated into lesson plans.

This outreach project serves NASA’s major educational goals by aiming to attract and retain students in STEM disciplines.  It continues NASA’s tradition of investing in education and supporting educators who play a vital role in preparing, inspiring, exciting, encouraging, and nurturing our future workforce.