REU site: Interdisciplinary Research Experience in Environmental Science and Engineering

The REU site at Montana Tech connects students interested in a career characterizing and improving environmental quality with multi- and interdisciplinary projects focused on solving problems sustainably with emerging technologies. Montana Technological University, located in the heart of the Rocky Mountains in Butte, MT, is uniquely situated near a wide range of natural and anthropogenic environmental problems, most notably issues resulting from more than 100-years of underground and open-pit hard rock mining.

This ten-week annual summer program provides students with an overview of possible careers in the environmental field by visiting several nearby field locations with diverse problems and explores the research and engineering solutions being applied to solve these issues. The ten selected student participants are matched with faculty mentors for a guided research project using the latest methods and techniques in each respective field.

Students participate and gain experience in each phase of the scientific process. This intensive approach gives students a broad view of the scientific process while allowing them to make progress on their own projects and learning to document and communicate their work. The program aims to enhance and enable the careers of student participants, lead to increased participation of underrepresented groups in STEM, and advance environmental quality in the near and long term.

Upon completion of the program, students have first-hand experience with a variety of cutting-edge methods to characterize and solve environmental problems, which will serve students well for a related career or continuing graduate education.

This 10-week undergraduate summer research program gives students a complete picture of the scientific or engineering approach in an environmental field closest to their interests. The program can be broken down into three phases: field investigation, mentored laboratory project, and reporting. During the first phase (~2 weeks), students learn sampling strategies for water chemistry, sediment and soil composition, index and engineering properties, and related methods from participating faculty.

Students and program faculty visit and sample nearby field sites including mining-impacted streams, alpine ecosystems affected by climate change, modern and historical mining operations and remediation sites, and an eolian deposit being stabilized with microbially focused engineering methods. Students will have a complementary safety and ethics classroom component.

The resulting samples and data are used for professional development for students throughout the program as a whole as they move into phase 2 (~8 weeks), undergraduate laboratory investigations. The participants work on projects ranging from geochemistry, to restoration ecology, to geological and environmental engineering will be supervised by participating faculty mentors.

During the final reporting phase (~1 week), students present their results to a symposium for all summer undergraduate research taking place at Montana Tech. Students also compose a written summary of their results in a format appropriate to the discipline of their guided research. The goal of the last phase is to guide students through the preparation of a professional work product and build strong science communication skills.

Recruitment efforts focus on predominantly undergraduate institutions and tribal colleges from Montana and nearby states where analogous environmental and geotechnical challenges are prevalent. Recruitment efforts are expected to yield a diverse applicant pool, with Native American and low-income students particularly well represented. The success of this program will be evaluated by an experienced external evaluator and provide a logic diagram from resources to outcomes.

The trainings hosted by the external evaluator allow this knowledge to be retained on campus and used in subsequent research involving undergraduates. The sum of these components helps students transition to being professionals in a rewarding STEM field that benefits local communities and the environment.

This project is jointly funded by the EAR-REU program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.