INSTRUCTOR 1: What are we doing here? We are orienting a map.
JACKI KLANCHER: I think we're seeing a resurgence of interest and value in technical trades.
KLANCHER: So there's everything from maps, to web-based applications, to drones.
KLANCHER: This field of study that might seem foreign to people
is actually something we're using at every moment of the day these days.
INSTRUCTOR 2: We can download onto our phones or tablets to take into the field.
KLANCHER: People actually are engaging with geospatial information science and tech,
and using it intimately through Google applications on their phone and anything located to place and space.
INSTRUCTOR 1: We have the river, and we have the road. We could use either one of those as a handrail through...
STEVE BARLOW: What the ATE funding has done for this program is actually made it thrive.
KLANCHER: The support is critical for advancing our student growth, our college growth, our community growth, our employability of our students.
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KLANCHER: I'm Jacki Klancher. I'm the Director of Instruction and Research for the Central Wyoming College Alpine Science Institute.
We're in Lander, Wyoming. Really bucolic small town, population just over 7,000,
situated in the foothills of the Wind River Range, and proximal to the Wind River Reservation.
BARLOW: We serve a very diverse population.
Our mission is to find what's needed in the community, in the world, kind of what we're doing here with the NSF,
and address that in a way that meets the needs of any student.
KLANCHER: Sean, any thoughts on how studying GIST has been helpful for you?
SEAN: It will help me get a permanent job at the Forest Service, eventually.
KLANCHER: Our program is housed within an associate's degree called Expedition Science.
So that's a mix of students exploring outdoor education, environmental science, and geospatial information, science, and technology.
But during the summer, with support from the Advanced Technological Education Program,
we are crafting accredited curriculum where students are focused on learning and applying GIST to collect data in the field
and extending those applications to natural resources, to archeology, to glaciology, to hydrology.
TODD GUENTHER: Without the ATE funding, we would be limping along at a much-reduced scale.
INSTRUCTOR 3: Line up the number so you get your whole target in the center of your-, bottom of your bucket here.
STUDENT 1: Wow. OK. This is actually kind of fun.
GUENTHER: And so, what we're doing differently now is that, in addition to getting experience in the field,
more students are able to participate because we've actually got funding to pay them stipends
so that they don't have to work in the summer at the same time.
CADENCE TRUCHOT: We have used GPS in high elevation archeological sites, as well as lower elevation sites, and interdisciplinary climate change expeditions.
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KARRI L. CARY: The Forest Service is a public land management agency. We focus on managing and protecting our resources.
The partnership is really invaluable.
These students are our eyes. There are places where, maybe, we get to once a season, and they're able to revisit them multiple times.
KLANCHER: Not only do we look to the United States Forest Service as an end goal, perhaps, employment agency,
but also, as part of the learning process, and we play off each other.
INSTRUCTOR 1: We go from Timber Top here to down in the valley.
TRUCHOT: It has helped me so much pursuing my education and helped me embrace who I am and where I come from.
I am from the Lemhi Shoshone tribe. That is the same tribe that Sacagawea is from.
Being Native American, the land is very, very important to our spirituality.
We don't look at it as property.
And if we don't know how to give back to it or appreciate it, then we don't have anything.
TRUCHOT: This is coming off of this side here.
GUENTHER: For many of my students, it's a route to expand their horizons.
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KLANCHER: We've woken up to the challenges that face students trying to gain an education.
There are many, many federal jobs and private agency jobs that require all these skills.
STUDENT 2: Yeah, because there's that big quarry right there.
KLANCHER: And in doing so, contribute to social justice, environmental justice, social change.
TRUCHOT: I can actually use this education and this skill set and experience to actually give back to the tribes.
And that, within itself, is bigger than I have ever imagined.
BARLOW: Life gets in the way, and many of them have to drop out of school
because the length of the courses, the length of the program is too long.
So, any way we could shorten that up would be wonderful.
KLANCHER: We can condense learning through the Advanced Technological Education Program
and give really quality learning during the summer months.
GUENTHER: Many of them are first generation college.
A lot of them are discouraged by their family members from pursuing a college education.
KLANCHER: I think the ATE program has had a magnificent impact on student success, student recruitment, student retention,
and attracting a more diverse student audience to our programs.
And I'm really proud to be able to offer something that's so practical.
And I feel great satisfaction that when they leave at the end of the summer,
their pockets won't be empty, and their minds will be full.
GUENTHER: It's really reshaping their lives, and then, by extension, their children and grandchildren and everybody else.
KLANCHER: The real delight is watching students shine and gain confidence and competence.
That's the outcome that enriches your soul as an educator, is watching someone else shine.
That's the whole goal.
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