CRITICAL THINKING


STEM DAY UNDERWAY


Greg Chappelle, left, with cadets at a STEM DAY camp Aug. 5, 2021, at Fort Custer. At these camp sessions, kids are encouraged to explore their interests in the fields of science, technology, engineering, art and math. (Photo by Jerome Aliotta, DEVCOM Ground Vehicle Systems Center)


of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to keep the program going, however, he knew he’d need to find a way to keep the momen- tum for the long term. “In order to get more funding for the program, the OSD needed some metrics to show data on how their investment was working,” he said. Although it was a reasonable request, show- ing hard statistics was no easy task. So he consulted with the National Science Foun- dation. Te NSF suggested there would only be “longitudinal results” with this kind of study. In other words, he chuck- led, “you won’t know the results until 20 years from now, when the kids grow up, graduate and go into their careers, which would be a long wait.”


But Chappelle has been with the DOD for 40 years. He knows the drill—so to speak. Te only real way to measure the program’s success rate was to seek


outside assistance in developing metrics. So he sought support from Harvard University, which “promotes university- wide engagement with Native American and Indigenous issues . . . through rele- vant research, teaching, partnership and exchange” through its Harvard Univer- sity Native American Program (HUNAP). Te overall goal of HUNAP is “to culti- vate the development, achievement, and impact of American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and other Indig- enous students to further the goals of the Harvard Charter of 1650, which commit- ted the president and fellows of Harvard College to “the education of the English and Indian youth of this country.”


OBVIOUS BENEFITS Te Harvard assessment compared the grade point averages (GPAs) of the kids who attended the GLRTN STEM camp


for eight or nine years against those who never attended at all to get an idea of the differentials. According to Chappelle there was “a pretty significant difference.” Te kids who enrolled in the camp had a 3.43 GPA average, as opposed to a 2.94 GPA for the kids who didn’t. In addition to GPAs, he said “Te kids that enrolled in the camp and were trained by us had direction and a clear career path, and the kids who didn’t enroll had little to no direction and were undecided in their major.”


Te metric assessment showed obvious benefits, and Chappelle is hopeful that funding will continue for the program to flourish. He said to date he’s received fund- ing every few years to keep the program afloat, but the struggle is ongoing. In 2010, the OSD issued a $400,000 grant to continue funding the GLRTN STEM program. Subsequent grants followed


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