This project will provide substantive summer research fellowships for students from Tribal Colleges at the University of Montana (UM) to provide training in environmental biology. The project involves substantial collaborations between UM and Salish Kootenai College (SKC) in developing this training for students. It will provide research experiences in one or more of 21 labs working environmental biology including the Flathead Lake Biological Station. It will develop a series of seminars in environmental biology that involve collaborations between UM and SKC. It will provide for extensive mentoring of undergraduate students by their peers, graduate students and faculty. It will develop an invited speaker series bringing American Indian biologists from a broad region to interact with program participants. The project will train students to be flexible thinkers and to work collaboratively to ask questions and solve problems in environmental biology. It will increase the number of American Indian students pursuing training and careers in environmental biology.
