The Sharing Cycle of Science Learning: Connecting Community Topics to Tribal College Lab Courses

"3 This underrepresentation is troubling because the fastestgrowing occupations for the past half century in the United States have been dependent upon knowledge of science and mathematics.4 In addition, changes in federal policy are slowly allowing self-governance of American Indian reservations, which has stimulated the need for better trained individuals to assist in managing tribal affairs.5 Tribal College Mission and Nebraska's Tribal Colleges The American Indian Higher Education Consortium (aihec) and the Tribal College and University (tcu) system were created in 1973 and just celebrated their fortieth anniversary.6 There are now thirty-seven tcus (Fig. 1) serving about 20,000 students and providing services to an additional 46,000 community members. Banks and colleagues coined the phrase "Life-Long, Life-Wide, and Life-Deep" to encapsulate the notion that most learning takes place throughout our lives, in formal and informal environments, and in ways that are acceptable to our local community (i.e., connected to religious, moral, ethical, and social values).10 These Life Learning ideas arise from the realization that a small percentage of people's lives are spent in structured, formal learning environments (18.5 percent for Grades 1-12; 9.7 percent for undergraduates; 5.1 percent for graduates; and occasionally as adults).\n This should help us meet our goal of more than six students enrolled in chemistry at both colleges by the fourth year of the program.