PABLO – On a recent morning at the Salish Kootenai College campus in Pablo, students are rushing around the Adeline Mathias Building putting the finishing touches on projects they’ve been working on for the last three weeks.
The students have been taking part in a 10-week internship sponsored by NASA that will give them skills to earn jobs in the technology industry. Montana Space Grant Consortium Assistant Director Jen Fowler said programs like the one at the tribal college will be critical in training the state’s workforce.
“Where does the workforce for a place like S&K Technologies come from?” Fowler asked, adding that the tribal owned technology-company recently won a major subcontract to provide technical services for NASA’s International Space Station program. “Our goals are for these students to learn new skills that they can use to either get a job like that or further their education.”
The Montana Space Grant Consortium was established in 1991 and is part of a network of consortiums across the country that help spread NASA’s footprint to every state. The consortium works with schools, businesses, and non-profits to promote math and technology education in the state.
The Launching Culturally Relevant Montana Careers in STEM program, or LAUNCH, is held every year at the Salish-Kootenai College and hosts community college students from across the state to work on individual technology projects. The first three weeks feature intensive classes and workshop time before the students go back to their home institution to finish their project over the course of seven weeks.
Rob Teruel, 37, is a Helena College student who is building a specialized GoPro that can record data like speed and acceleration. Teruel came up with the idea because he is an avid motorcyclist. When it’s finished, the GoPro will also be able to track the lean of the bike. All of that data will be overlaid on to the footage the GoPro records.
“To get all of the data I wanted would have cost a lot of money, but now with this tool, I can get information about lean, acceleration and speed with a fraction of the cost,” he said.
Another student, Tyrel Fenner, 31, of Charlo, has been studying the inner workings of water censors. Fenner is majoring in hydrology at Salish-Kootenai College and is originally from Babb. He said he took the 10-week internship because he wanted to advance his technology skills, something he believes will be important in finding a job after graduation.
Teruel said the best part of the internship is the hands-on work, which he said makes the consortium program unique.
“This is so different from most internships where most of the time it’s all about what you can do for the company,” he said. “But here it’s all about what they can do for the student.”